doctrine
A belief or tenet, especially about philosophical or theological matters.
Example
“The Incarnation is a basic doctrine of Christianity.”
Other meanings
The body of teachings of an ideology, most often a religion, or of an ideological or religious leader, organization, group or text.
“What is the understanding of marriage and family in orthodox Marxist doctrine?”
A self-imposed policy governing some aspect of a country's foreign relations, especially regarding what sort of behavior it will or will not tolerate from other countries.
Synonyms
- philosophy
- philosophical system
- school of thought
Related words
- counterdoctrine
- doctrinable
- doctrineless
- doctrinism
- endoctrine
- undoctrined
- abstention doctrine
- plain view doctrine
- Bell doctrine
- blue pencil doctrine
- castle doctrine
- doctrine of equivalents
Word history
From Latin "doctrina" (teaching, instruction, learning, knowledge).
Where this comes from
This definition is adapted from “doctrine” on Wiktionary, by its contributors; related-word lists use Open English WordNet (CC BY 4.0, based on Princeton WordNet), published under CC BY-SA 4.0. This page is published under the same licence.