surmise
Syllables: sur·miseUK/sɜːˈmaɪz/US/sɚˈmaɪz/
surmise noun: thought, imagination, or conjecture, which may be based upon feeble or scanty evidence; suspicion; guess.
Noun
surmise (countable and uncountable, plural surmises)
- Thought, imagination, or conjecture, which may be based upon feeble or scanty evidence; suspicion; guess.
- surmises of jealousy or of envy
- This opinion, however, is merely a surmise, which may or may not be the case.
- Synonyms:
- assumption, conjecture, foreguess, given, guess, hunch, hypothesis, inference, posit, possibility
- Reflection; thought; posit.
- My Thought, whoſe Murther yet is but fantaſticall, / Shakes ſo my ſingle ſtate of Man, / That Function is ſmother'd in ſurmiſe, / And nothing is, but what is not.c. 1606?, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies, London: Printed by Isaac...
- Then felt I like some watcher of the skies / When a new planet swims into his ken; / Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes / He star'd at the Pacific—and all his men / Look'd at each other with a wild surmise— / Silent, upon a peak in Darien.1816 December 1, John Keats, “[Sonnets.] Sonnet XI. On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer.”, in Poems, London: […] [Charles Richards] for C[harles] & J[ames] Ollier, […], published 3 March 1817...
Verb
surmise (third-person singular simple present surmises, present participle surmising, simple past and past participle surmised)
- To imagine or suspect; to conjecture; to posit with contestable premises.
- If, as I surmise, you see the ladies this evening, you might mention my intended visit.
- "That is true," said Don Quixote, "And therefore I cannot guess or surmise what this may be; but wait: we shall see if there is something written in this diary that will allow us to investigate and learn what we wish to know."Part 1 published in 1605, Part 2 in 1615, translated in 2003, Miguel de Cervantes and translated by Edith Grossman, Don Quixote, page 175
- Synonyms:
- arread, assume, fancy, conject, conjecture, daresay, dope, foreguess, go out on a limb, guess
surmise meaning in Urdu, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada
surmise in Urdu
- گمان, گمان کرنا, شک کرنا
surmise in Bengali
- অনুমান করা
surmise in Malayalam
- തോന്നൽ, ഊഹാപോഹം, ഉദ്ദേശ്യം, അനുമാനം, ഊഹിക്കുക, ഊഹംനിനയ്ക്കുക
surmise in Kannada
- ಅನುಮಾನಿಸು, ಊಹಿಸು, ಅಂದಾಜುಮಾಡು, ಶಂಕಿಸು, ತೋರಿಕೆ, ಅನಿಸಿಕೆ
More languagesFewer languages
- surmise in Persian
- انگاشت engâšt, گمان gomân, پندار pendâr, اندیشه andiše
Examples of surmise in a sentence
- No word had been said to give me anything to think about, and any surmises I might make were unwarranted.1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter 32, in The Moon and Sixpence: A Novel (Heinemann's Colonial Library of Popular Fiction), London...
- In short, the chances of the Princes Street terminal's survival seem unsure, though at the moment these views are no more than surmise.1962 April, “Talking of Trains: The future of Princes Street”, in Modern Railways, page 227:
Synonyms of surmise
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
- postulation
- presumption
- reckoning
- speculation
- supposition
- suspicion
- theory
- arread
- assume
- fancy
- daresay
- go out on a limb
- guesstimate
- hypothesize
- hypotheticate
- imagine
- infer
- overhope
- postulate
- presume
- reckon
- speculate
- suppose
- suspect
- take a stab at
- take for granted
- take something as read
- theorize
- conject
- dope
Forms of surmise
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | surmises |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | surmises |
| present participle | surmising |
| past participle | surmised |
| past | surmised |
Origin of surmise
From Old French surmis, past participle of surmetre, surmettre (“to accuse”), from sur- (“upon”) + metre (“to put”).
Words formed from surmise
Words that rhyme with surmise
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- arise
- capsize
- comprise
- guise
- revise
- abscise
- agrise
- apprise
- chastise
- despise
- flys
- guys
- lyse
- palatalize
- pies
- prise
- skies
- snies
- sties
- supplies
- ties
- tries
- velarize
- aguise
- applies
- authorize
- ayes
- belies
- brise
- buys
- byes
- complies
- cries
- dies
- dries
- dyes
- excise
- eyes
- flies
- flyes
- four eyes
- frankenpies
- fries
- Frise
- hies
- highs
- home fries
- i's
Questions about surmise
- What does surmise mean?
- Surmise means thought, imagination, or conjecture, which may be based upon feeble or scanty evidence; suspicion; guess.
- What is surmise in Urdu?
- Surmise in Urdu is گمان, گمان کرنا, شک کرنا. See Surmise meaning in Urdu.
- How do you use surmise in a sentence?
- No word had been said to give me anything to think about, and any surmises I might make were unwarranted.
- What part of speech is surmise?
- Surmise can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce surmise?
- Surmise is pronounced /sɜːˈmaɪz/ (UK).
- What is the plural of surmise?
- The plural of surmise is surmises.
Words near surmise in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: surmise (page history and authors); surmise (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); surmise (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); surmise (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); surmise (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-surmise.ogg.
Cite this entry: “surmise.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/surmise. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.