leap of faith

1. An acceptance of or willingness to do something based largely or entirely on one's faith that it is correct or will work, despite having little or no evidence or assurance thereof. It will be quite the leap of faith for us to trust an outsider to run the organization, after the family has maintained control for over 100 years. I feel a bit wary that people seem so eager to make a leap of faith about driverless cars being free to drive in our streets.

2. In video games, a jump that the player's character is forced to make when the player is unable to see where they will land. Because the game doesn't offer any control over the camera, there are a number of occasions where you have to take a leap of faith and just hope for the best.

See also: faith, leap, of

*leap of faith

Fig. acceptance of an idea or conclusion largely on faith. (*Typically: be ~; make ~; require ~.) We had to make quite a leap of faith to accept his promise after the last time he let us down.

See also: faith, leap, of

leap of faith

A belief or trust in something intangible or incapable of being proved. For example, It required a leap of faith to pursue this unusual step of transplanting an animals' heart into a human patient .

See also: faith, leap, of

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

leap of faith

The act or an instance of believing or trusting in something intangible or incapable of being proved.

See also: faith, leap, of

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

leap of faith

A belief or trust in something or someone that has no basis in past experience or fact. It is often applied to technological breakthroughs, as in “It took a real leap of faith for the first astronaut to step out on the Moon.” A Boston Globe article by Thomas Oliphant quotes Senator Edward Kennedy discussing a Supreme Court nominee: “The confirmation of nominees to our courts should not require a leap of faith. Nominees must earn their confirmation by providing us with full knowledge of the values and convictions they will bring to decisions. . . .” (Sept. 29, 2005).

See also: faith, leap, of

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References in periodicals archive

Similarly, we can criticize as naive Bazin's willingness to invest belief in the image as reality, but we can also identify with a dying man's leap of faith, especially when we realize that it is essentially no different from our own everyday psychic and affective investments in the cinema.

Teaching film theory in a post-film era

You too have taken a leap of faith each month, simply assuming that the information is correct, the stories accurate and timely, the advice relevant.

A leap of faith. (Editorial View Point)

Tenor saxophonist Mark Turner joins the group on one cut, the burning "Leap of Faith." All the cuts are Redman compositions, and except for his back-and-forth (really more of a side-by-side) with Turner, he is pretty well the featured musician throughout.

Joshua Redman: Beyond (Warner Bros. 9 47465-2)

Anyone willing to take this leap of faith and accept the bill will soon find collectors offering him thousands of Treasury-approved dollars for it.

The Art of the Deal

As such, a consumer must be willing to take a leap of faith when ordering from a site for the first time.

Touch & Feel Beats Out Click & Hope Every Time

We're taking a leap of faith - we'll spend $20 million getting the measurements in place for some of the key things we want to improve.

Enterprise business solutions: so where's the value

In our manufactured millennial distraction and distress, which leap of faith will work?

Apocalypse deferred: the second coming of John Doyle's Extraordinary visitor

238) Richard Trexler's work on a few hundred foundlings (1973) is then exploded to add masses of poor infants to the horde of deprived babies, a geographic leap of faith turns Florence into Italy, and a chronological stretch translates the 1400's into five centuries since the Reformation, all in support of the following conclusion.

Veiled Threats: The Logic of Popular Catholicism in Italy

Instead, she had a leap of faith and "realized that God's love was truly meant for me." Through a Christian woman, herself a former lesbian, Anne says she was led to Exodus International, and their ministry helped her to overcome her homosexuality.

Scaring them straight

Perhaps even more important is that in taking the truths of our Catholic religion for granted, we have not taken the leap of faith upon which all of them are grounded.

What kind of Presence are you expecting?

Leap of Faith is the usual mugwumpery that results every time Hollywood decides to deal with religion.

Just Another Girl on the I.R.T

Tracking is a system; untracking is a leap of faith.

Blowing up the tracks: stop segregating kids by ability and watch kids grow

Should he stay put at the Etihad and risk not getting many Premier League games or should he take a leap of faith and ask to go out on loan to an upwardly mobile top-flight club.

Fo and go for games

HUNDREDS of thrill-seekers took a leap of faith by abseiling down Liverpool Cathedral.

Daredevils take plunge at cathedral

Van Monster Cannock employees Nathan Eaton and his uncle Tom Eaton took the leap of faith for Headway with six friends and family to raise the funds.

Staff from a used van [...]