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belied

Verb
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Misrepresented or made false. Here it means the hopes and fears did not match the truth of her condition.

Detailed Definition
In older or literary English, to belie something is to give a false impression of it or contradict it. Hood uses the word to show how the watchers’ hopes and fears kept proving each other wrong as they tried to read the dying woman’s state.
Example
Example in poetry:
“Our very hopes belied our fears,” where belied means proved false or gave a misleading impression; “her calm face belied the storm within” is a common contrast between appearance and reality; Shakespearean drama repeatedly lets outward signs belie inward intention; “the cheerful forecast belied the flooded streets” gives the verb a contemporary factual use
Additional Notes
The verb in “Our very hopes belied our fears” is a literary usage that many modern readers may not immediately know.; Found in the poem, The Death Bed by Thomas Hood
Also Known As
contradicted denied disavowed refuted
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