Benefit of the doubt definition: a favorable opinion or judgment adopted despite uncertainty | Meaning, pronunciation, translations and examples From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English give somebody the benefit of the doubt give somebody the benefit of the doubt BELIEVE to accept what someone tells you, even though you think they may be wrong or lying but you cannot be sure The referee gave him the benefit of the doubt. Generally, when giving someone the benefit of the doubt, you are accepting that person's assertion(s) even though you aren't too sure as to whether or not they are true. Synonyms for benefit of the doubt in Free Thesaurus. Also: Give Someone the Benefit of the Doubt Meaning of Idiom 'Give Someone the Benefit of a Doubt' To give someone the benefit of a doubt is to assume they are telling the truth or they are innocent because you cannot be sure they are not; to decide to believe or trust someone until you have a rea Doubt is a feeling one gets when one doesn't have enough information to make a sound decision. Antonyms for benefit of the doubt. → benefit Examples from the Corpus give somebody the benefit of the doubt • Something didn't … I give him the benefit of the doubt since he is an attorney and not an economist or accountant. A definition of "giving a benefit of a doubt to someone" I found somewhere on the Internet is "to believe something good about someone, rather than something bad, when you have the possibility of doing either" - which basically means - if someone you know does something strange/wrong, you assume he either made a mistake or had good intentions... instead of flat out thinking he's a bad person. He's a pretty decent character so I will give him the benefit of the doubt. The judge acquitted other members of her in-laws' family by giving them the benefit of the doubt.