[‘ Belief in things beyond the certain and verifiable.']
Pronunciation: Brit. /ˈɑːbəɡlaʊbə/, U.S. /ˈɑbərˌɡlaʊbə/
Etymology: < German /Aberglaube/ (13th or 14th cent. in Middle High German) < Middle High German /aber/ again, but (in compounds expressing opposition or falsity; originally a comparative of ab: see of prep.) + gloube belief (see belief n.).
Not fully naturalized in English.
Belief in things beyond the certain and verifiable.
[1873 M. Arnold /Lit. & Dogma/ 77 Our word ‘superstition’..has come to be used in a merely bad sense, and to mean a childish and craven religiosity, With the German word it is not so; therefore Goethe can say with propriety and truth: ‘Aberglaube is the poetry of life.']
1873 /Contemp. Rev./ Oct. 794 The most extravagant Aberglaube, to use a word Mr. M. Arnold has almost naturalized, is rooted in a prior glaube.
1903 /Times/ 11 Dec. 9/6 Our insular pronunciation of Latin in an almost exaggerated form is a sort of Aberglaube.
1962 /PMLA/ *77* 295/1 The Scholar-Gipsy is a survival from an age when both Aberglaube and free thought flourished.
1994 R. S. Edgecombe /Leigh Hunt & Poetry of Fancy/ iii. 103 Nostalgia for the Aberglaube of antiquity has impelled Hunt to give the Sestians a reverence that..salutes the sanctity of mutual love.