I wondered awhile ago from where we got the word belief, and before I looked it up I added some rhymes to it: lief and relief.

I started with “lief.” My sources indicate it’s been used since before the 12^th century. As an adjective it means dear, beloved, willing, inclined. As an adverb, it means gladly or willingly (I would as lief go to the library as to the movies). As a noun (now obsolete) it meant a darling, a loved one. The word came to us from the Middle English leef, which hailed from the Anglo-Saxon leóf or Old English lēof, meaning “dear, beloved.”

“Belief” arrived a bit later. It comes from the Middle English beleve, beleafe. Those words descended from the Anglo-Saxon geleafa from gelēfan, which meant … belief. But when I looked closer at gelēfan, I saw it contained lēfan, which meant “allow.” That word was akin to the Old English lēof, which as mentioned above meant dear, and which gave us the words lief and love.

Love? Sure enough, my dictionary says it’s from Middle English lufu, akin to Old High German luba, and in fact the same old lēof. It’s all related to the Latin lubere (to please). So I learned: when we “believe” in something, we really are referring to an opinion we love.

When I turned to relief, I expected a relationship. I didn’t find one. The word has been used since the 14^th century and comes through the French from the Latin (relevare = to raise, from levis = light (unheavy)).

By the way, I also looked into grief, brief, chief, and thief. As far as I can tell, they’re no more related to lief/belief than relief.