Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A doctrine, principle, or position held as part of a philosophy, religion, or field of endeavor.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Any opinion, principle, dogma, or doctrine which a person, school, or sect holds or maintains as true.
  • noun Synonyms Precept. Dogma, etc. See doctrine.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Any opinion, principle, dogma, belief, or doctrine, which a person holds or maintains as true.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An opinion, belief, or principle held to be true by someone or especially an organization.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a religious doctrine that is proclaimed as true without proof

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Probably from Medieval Latin, from Latin, third person sing. present indicative of tenēre, to hold; see ten- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin tenet ("he holds"), from teneō ("hold; have")

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Examples

Comments

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  • Does anyone else find it odd, based on the events of the Iraq War, that this is the last name of the director of the C.I.A. who assured us there were Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq?

    November 27, 2008