to suspend disbelief
2
7.7
- idiom
:
suspender la incredulidad
- To fully enjoy the fantasy film, you need to suspend disbelief and let yourself be transported to another world.
But with this mascot, you're able to suspend disbelief.
- But with this mascot, you're able to suspend disbelief.
- You pick it up knowing that you're reading fantasy, so you automatically suspend disbelief.
- And I'm wondering if I have friends who will not read science fiction or fantasy because they can't suspend disbelief enough.
Examples
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I am quite willing to suspend disbelief if the author can keep me interested in the story.
Blog text (8) -
But the sense of motion through time and space in motion pictures is so convincing that we suspend disbelief.
Blog text (3) -
OK, However, are we really not going to suspend disbelief for a flying horse?
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Well, for this movie, you gotta suspend disbelief.
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But I guess you have to suspend disbelief on that.
Blog text (20) -
However, I can say that your claim about Blessed John Paul II is extraordinary and requires me to suspend disbelief.
Blog text (9) -
It's the writing, and the uncommon characters it reveals, that allows us to suspend disbelief.
Blog text (18) -
You've got to suspend disbelief for these things, though.
Blog text (24) -
To understand the metaphor and live within it is to suspend disbelief, to close off a critical and distant analysis, and to trust this way of seeing and feeling.
Academic text (1995) -
If a novel commands belief, or at least works well enough to suspend disbelief, readers are more than willing to follow where it leads, taking its people, its story, its milieu, and its social subjects as fully convincing.
Academic text (2007)
Synonyms
18
4.5
Believe something is true without checking it
Antonyms
How Accepting
22
5.1
2
7.7
Surface Forms
Morphology
Both constituents contribute directly: 'suspend' means temporarily stop and 'disbelief' means lack of belief, so together they yield 'temporarily stop not believing' which matches the idea of setting aside doubts to enjoy a story. This is a straightforward compositional verb + noun pattern (attested across languages), so a B1 learner who knows the two words can reliably infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
The phrase suspend disbelief comes from a writer's idea: imagine you can suspend (hang up) your disbelief (your doubts) for a short time so you can enjoy a story or film. That's why it now means 'to set aside doubts' and accept what you are shown while watching or reading.