presumptuous

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English presumptuous, also presomptuos and presumtuous,^[2] borrowed from Anglo-Norman presumtuous and Middle French presumptueux,^[3] and directly borrowed from Late Latin praesūmptuōsus (“full of boldness”).^[3][4][5] The French adjective is recorded from the early 13th century in the OED, from the 12th in Etymonline, and is now présomptueux.^[3][4] The Latin adjective is a variant of praesūmptiōsus,^[6][5][7] which the OED thinks was probably influenced by sūmptuōsus, the source of sumptuous.^[3] It comes from praesūmptiō (“confidence, audacity”),^[5][8][4] from the stem of praesūmō (“to take beforehand, anticipate”), from prae (“before”) and sūmō (“to take”).^[4][9] Parallel forms in other Romance languages include Spanish presuntuoso and Italian presuntuoso.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Unduly bold, arrogant: before 1398, in Trevisa's translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus, where a bad servant is proude & presumptous, rendering Latin presumptuosus.^[2][3] Etymonline dates the word to the mid-14th century, and Dictionary.com to 1300–50.^[4][7]

Semantic evolution

The adjective has kept its main sense, going beyond what is proper out of too much confidence, from its first record to the present.^[3][8] Middle English also used it of usurping or encroaching, and of rebellious or stubborn conduct, and could make it a noun for an overweening person.^[2][3] Johnson (1755) glossed it as "arrogant; confident; insolent".^[10] A second sense, originally Scottish, meant giving grounds for belief or based on a supposition: it is recorded from before 1639 to 1899, is not paralleled in French, other Romance languages or Latin, and was apparently influenced by presumptive.^[3] Collins now calls that use obsolete.^[11]

Timeline

• before 1398 – arrogant, unduly bold.^[3][2]
• 1589 – as a noun, the rhetorical figure procatalepsis, in Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie (recorded only then).^[3]
• before 1639 – giving grounds for presumption, based on a supposition; originally Scottish (last recorded 1899).^[3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Going beyond what is proper; too bold or too sure of one's rights, and so taking liberties; arrogant: It seemed presumptuous to give advice to a stranger.^[8][11][3]
2. (obsolete, before 1639–1899) Presumptive; based on a supposition.^[3][11]

Word family

• presumptuously
• presumptuousness
• overpresumptuous
• unpresumptuous

Related words

• presumption
• presume
• presumptive
• presumptious
• sumptuous

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins