Other forms: suspicions
Suspicion is the uneasy feeling that somebody is up to something. Arouse suspicion, under suspicion, a nagging suspicion.
It also means a belief held on incomplete evidence: I have a suspicion he already knew. On suspicion of is the legal formula for an arrest — arrested on suspicion of theft — which says the police have grounds and not proof. Above suspicion means nobody would think it of you. Note suspicious, which describes both the person who suspects and the thing that causes it, and is one of the few adjectives that faces both ways.
1nounsuspicionThe uneasy feeling that somebody is up to something.
“Suspicion fell on the one person who had nothing to do with it.”
2nounbeliefA belief held without full evidence.
“I have a suspicion the letter was never sent.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
suspicion is an uneasy belief.
Also accepted in games: distrust
Latin suspicio comes from suspicere — sub-, from below, plus specere, to look. To suspect somebody is to look up at them from underneath, which is a good picture of watching without being seen to watch.
Proto-Indo-European
*speḱ-
Latin
suspicio
Middle English
suspecioun
English, today
suspicion
Built from
From Middle English suspecioun, borrowed from Latin suspicio, from suspicere, from sub- (“up to”) with specere (“to look at”). Perhaps partly through the influence of Old French sospeçon (or rather the Anglo-Norman form suspecioun). Equivalent to suspect + ion.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA