Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The act of taking or assuming.
  • noun The major premise of a syllogism, or modus ponens (which see, under modus).

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete A taking.
  • noun (Logic) The major premise of a syllogism.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun rare a taking
  • noun obsolete The major premise of a syllogism.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin sumere, to take

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Examples

  • Behind this false as sumption was my complete misunderstanding of both God and the meaning of total commitment.

    Living on the Edge Chip Ingram 2009

  • For the first time someone had made the correct as - sumption about Stefan's model.

    The Bellini Bride Reid, Michelle 2002

  • Everyone else would be operating under the as - sumption that Kylen Elessedil and the Elven High Council fully supported the expedition and anticipated its safe and successful return.

    Ilse Witch Brooks, Terry 2000

  • SPVs are a form of financial engineering-based on the as - sumption of rising share prices-and use a ring-fenced mechanism whereby a lender takes downside risks when things go wrong.

    ANC Daily News Briefing 2000

  • Measles increases the con-sumption of vitamin A and often precipitates xerophthalmia.

    Chapter 13 1993

  • In the West, the theology of dispersal to which we have alluded, and the corresponding popular as - sumption that the pre-Babel lingua Adamica was

    LINGUISTICS HENRY M. HOENIGSWALD 1968

  • The underlying as - sumption is that names were consciously invented by an original name-giver, who may well have had more than one reason for a certain choice.

    STUDY OF LANGUAGE ALVAR ELLEG 1968

  • Their whole argument, however, indicates an implicit as - sumption, similar to Plato's, that language was invented by rational men.

    STUDY OF LANGUAGE ALVAR ELLEG 1968

  • This whole conception is based frankly on the as - sumption that armed by the insights of Marxist-Lenin - ism, the Communist Party knows better what the true interests of the working class are than the workers know themselves; that it cannot give the workers their head but must, if necessary, restrain or compel them for their own good.

    MARXISM SIDNEY HOOK 1968

  • The tendency to im - mobilize poetry was strengthened by a customary as - sumption in Greek literature (found also in Sanskrit poetry and the Vedas): the first known of its poets is also the greatest.

    Dictionary of the History of Ideas E. N. TIGERSTEDT 1968

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