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presupposition

UK/pɹiː.sʌ.pəˈzɪ.ʃ(ə)n/
nounC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,815 of 15,258Too rare in one of the two pools to compare — fewer than 20 uses in speech or in writing

Other forms: presuppositions

A presupposition is something an argument takes for granted before starting. A hidden presupposition, challenge the presupposition, rest on a presupposition.

The dangerous ones are the invisible ones: have you stopped cheating presupposes that you were, and answering either way concedes it. Linguists test for a presupposition by negating the sentence, since a real one survives the negation.

Definitions of presupposition

  1. 1nounpresuppositionSomething an argument takes for granted before starting.C2

    “Her whole plan rested on the presupposition that house prices would keep rising.”

presupposition is an assumption.

Where it comes from

Latin praesuppositio comes from praesupponere, to suppose beforehand — prae, before, plus supponere, to place under.

  1. Latin

    praesuppositio

  2. Middle French

    présupposition

  3. English, today

    presupposition

Built from

  • praesuppōnere · Latin — to presuppose

From Middle French présupposition, from Latin praesuppositio, from the past participle stem of praesuppōnere (“to presuppose”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Logic & Argument

Practise this word

presupposition in the wild

  • The classic example of a presupposition is the existence presupposition which arises from definite descriptions.

    Linguistic entailment

  • The presupposition is a proposition that is presumed to be acceptable to the respondent when the question is asked.

    Complex question

  • An ultimate presupposition is a belief over which no other takes precedence.

    Presuppositional apologetics

  • In linguistics and philosophy, a presupposition is an implicit assumption about the world or background belief relating to an utterance, whose truth is taken for granted in discourse.

    Presupposition

  • In linguistics, a presupposition of a statement is a proposition which must be true in order for the statement to make sense.

    Presupposition (disambiguation)

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.