Lesson 1: Believing

These words all come from the Latin root credere, meaning 'to believe.' They deal with concepts of trust, belief, and principles.

Key Words

📝Example Usage:

• It is hard to give credence to a report from such a credulous person. (credence means belief; credulous means gullible)
• The essentials of a person's creed, or system of belief, may be hard to summarize in a few sentences.

From the Latin word deus, meaning 'god,' these words are all about the divine.

Key Words

📝Example Usage:

• When the Roman senate refused to deify the emperor Caligula, he angrily proclaimed his horse a deity instead.
• Some parents seem to deify their children, regarding them as models of perfection.

Stemming from the Latin divinus, meaning 'of a god,' these words relate to supernatural insight and the quality of being godlike.

Key Words

📝Example Usage:

• I could divine from her tone of voice that she was not happy with the plan.
• Christian divinity students often study ancient languages to read religious texts in their original forms.

These words share the Greek root theos, meaning 'god,' and describe different ways of thinking about gods and religion.

Key Words

📝Example Usage:

• The study of theology might include analyzing how a theocracy can lead to the apotheosis of its ruler.
• Her stunning performance in the final match was the apotheosis of her brilliant career.

Continuing with the Greek root theos, this group covers specific beliefs about the existence and nature of gods.

Key Words

📝Example Usage:

• The ancient Greek pantheon included a wide array of gods and goddesses, from Zeus to Aphrodite.
• Though he was a self-proclaimed atheist, he found the ideas of pantheism, which identifies god with nature, to be beautiful.