postulate

Etymology

The verb is borrowed from Latin postulō (“to demand, require, claim”), by way of its past participle postulātus.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} In post-classical times the Latin verb also meant to elect someone to a church office when an impediment required a dispensation, and that is the sense in which the English verb first appears.^[2][3][7] Barnhart allows that it may instead have grown from the earlier adjective, or be a back-formation from postulation, or have come by all three routes.^[7] The noun is borrowed from Latin postulātum (“demand, request”), properly "that which is requested", the neuter of the participle used as a noun,^{[2][3][6][4][8]} and in its senses in logic and mathematics it follows the post-classical use of that word to render Ancient Greek αἴτημα (aítēma) in Aristotle and Euclid.^[2] The Latin verb is probably formed from a lost participle of poscō (“to ask urgently, demand”),^[3][7][5][6] from the root Proto-Indo-European *prek- (“to ask”),^[3][9] and is thus related to prex (“prayer”) and to pray.^[7][6] Barnhart compares Old Irish arco (“I ask”) and Old High German forskōn (“to ask, seek”), now German forschen.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Nominated to a bishopric subject to the Pope's approval: the adjective is recorded in the Proceedings of the Privy Council for 1433.^[10][2][7] The verb, to ask church authority to admit a nominee, is first recorded in an Act of Henry VIII of 1533–4,^[2][7] though the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English date it to late Middle English.^[4][11] The noun, a demand or request, follows in 1588,^[2][7][5] replacing the earlier postulation.^[7][3]

Semantic evolution

English first used the word as a term of church law.^[2][7][3] The sense of demanding or claiming something appears in the verb from 1605 and in the noun from 1588, and the OED marks both as obsolete or rare.^[2] Ayto explains the modern sense from this one: mathematicians and logicians called a simple proposition a postulate because it "demanded" to be taken for granted for the sake of further reasoning, and the use then spread.^[8] The revised OED has the noun as a fundamental presupposition from 1590, after postulātum in a Latin Aristotle of 1584,^[2] and as an unproved assumption from 1643.^[2] Johnson (1755) defines it as a position supposed or assumed without proof.^[12] The notion of requesting survives better in postulant.^[8]

Timeline

• 1433 – adjective, nominated to a bishopric or other high church office.^[2][10][7]
• 1497 – noun, a candidate for church office awaiting papal approval.^[2]
• 1533 – verb, to ask church authority to admit a nominee.^[2][7][3]
• 1566 – verb, to plead as an advocate (rare).^[2]
• 1588 – noun, a demand or request.^[2][7][3][5]
• 1590 – noun, a fundamental principle or presupposition.^[2] Barnhart and Etymonline date this sense to the 1640s.^[7][3]
• 1605 – verb, to demand, require or claim (obsolete after 1865).^[2]
• 1643 – noun, an unproved assumption, a hypothesis.^[2]
• 1660 – noun, in mathematics, a simple operation whose possibility is taken for granted.^[2]
• 1705 – verb, to posit or assume as true.^[2] Barnhart dates this sense to 1646.^[7]
• 1751 – noun, a proposition taken to be self-evident; an axiom.^[2][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A proposition taken as true without proof, as a basis for reasoning; an axiom or underlying assumption: The whole theory rests on one doubtful postulate.^[5][13][2]
2. (mathematics) A simple operation, especially in geometry, whose possibility is taken for granted.^[2]
3. (archaic) A demand or stipulation.^[5][2][4]
4. (historical, Scotland) A person nominated to a bishopric or other high church office, awaiting approval.^[2][4]

Verb

1. To assume or claim as true, existent or necessary; to posit: Astronomers postulated an unseen planet to explain the orbit.^[5][13][2]
2. (ecclesiastical law) To nominate someone to a church office subject to the sanction of a higher authority.^[5][13][2]
3. To ask, demand or claim.^[13][5] The OED treats this use as obsolete, with records from 1605 to 1865.^[2]

Word family

• postulation
• postulational
• repostulate
• unpostulated
• parallel postulate

Related words

• postulant
• postulatum
• expostulate
• pray

Usage notes

The verb ends in a full vowel, American /ˈpɑstʃəˌleɪt/, and the noun usually in a reduced one, American /ˈpɑstʃələt/.^[2][5]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
11. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins