suppose

Verb

suppose (third-person singular simple present supposes, present participle supposing, simple past and past participle supposed)

1. (intransitive, transitive) To take for granted; to conclude, with less than absolute supporting data; to believe.
   • I suppose we all agree that this is the best solution.
   • I won't be back before midday, I don't suppose.

   Synonyms:

   assume

2. (transitive) To theorize or hypothesize.
   • Suppose that A implies B and B implies C. Then A implies C.
   • Of all the queer collections of humans outside of a crazy asylum, it seemed to me this sanitarium was the cup winner. […] When you're well enough off so's you don't have to fret about anything but your heft or your diseases you begin to get queer, I suppose.1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter V, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC

   Synonyms:

   assume

3. (transitive) To imagine; to believe; to receive as true.
   • How easy is a bush supposed a bear!c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First...
   • Let not my lord suppose that they have slain all the young men, the king's sons; for Amnon only is dead.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 2 Samuel 13:32
4. (obsolete, transitive) To reckon to be, to account or esteem as.
   • [He] keeps you from the honors of a Queene,
     Being ſuppoſde his worthleſſe Concubine.c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC...
5. (transitive) To require to exist or to be true; to imply by the laws of thought or of nature.
   • Purpose supposes foresight.
   • One falsehood always supposes another, and renders all you can say suspected.1752, Charlotte Lennox, The Female Quixote
6. (obsolete, transitive) To put by fraud in the place of another; to substitute fraudulently.
   • A Water-monster, called the Nickard, does enter by night the chamber, where a woman is brought to bed, and stealeth when they are all sleeping, the new-born child and supposeth another in its place, which child growing up is like a monster and commonly dumb.1687, John Aubrey, Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme, page 30
   • ... that they when the queen is in child-birth, be present and warily observe lest the la-dies should privily counterfeit the inheritable sex, by supposing some other male, when the true birth is female,[…]1726 [1614], John Selden, Joannis Seldeni jurisconsulti Opera omnia, tam edita quam inedita, page 1009