supporre

Forms

supporre (first-person singular present suppóngo, first-person singular past historic suppósi, past participle suppósto or suppòsto, first-person singular imperfect supponévo, auxiliary avére)^[1] Older and literary forms are sopporre, soporre and supponere.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin suppōnere (“to put under; to substitute”), a compound of sub (“under”) and pōnō (“to put, place”).^[3][4][2][1] The infinitive was refashioned on the native porre, as Devoto notes.^[5][6] Nocentini glosses the Latin verb “to place under; to suppose”, also in the sense “to substitute by deceit”.^[4] Meyer-Lübke and Körting set the learned verb “to make a hypothesis” beside the inherited Old Italian sopporre (“to subject, put under”); Spanish suponer is the same verb, while French supposer was remade on poser.^[7][8][4]

De Vaan derives pōnō from an older Proto-Italic *po-sine/o- (“to put down”), a compound of the verb sinō (“to let, allow”): hence the old perfect ⟨posīvī⟩.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record of the sense “to imagine that something has happened or may happen in a certain way” is an Old Italian translation of Saint Augustine, perhaps of the 14th century, and it notes earlier records of other senses.^[3] GDLI quotes Dante's Convivio: Nulla scienza dimostra lo proprio subietto, ma suppone quello (“No science proves its own subject, but presupposes it”).^[2]

Semantic evolution

The older senses, “to put under” and “to replace (one person or thing) with another”, are now archaic.^[6][10][11] DEI records supporre in the sense “put under, put in another's place” from the 16th century.^[12] The sense “to suppose, conjecture” is well attested from Galileo, before 1642.^[3] The noun supposizione is recorded before 1406, in Francesco da Buti.^[3]

From the participle came supposta, a suppository (before 1320), and in the 20th century supponente “presumptuous, arrogant” (1973) and supponenza (1980).^[4]

Timeline

• Before 1320 – Supposta “suppository” is recorded.^[4]
• 14th century – The verb is recorded in the sense “to assume”.^[3][6]
• Before 1406 – Francesco da Buti uses supposizione.^[3]
• Before 1642 – Galileo uses supporre “to suppose”.^[3]
• 1973 – Supponente is recorded.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To suppose, to assume as a hypothesis: Supponiamo che domani piova.^[6][10][11]
2. (transitive) To presume, to believe: Suppongo che tu sia stanco.^[6][10][1]
3. (transitive, archaic) To put under.^[6][10]
4. (transitive, archaic) To substitute one person or thing for another.^[6][10][11]

Word family

• supposizione
• supposto
• supposta
• supponente
• supponenza
• presupporre
• suppositorio

Related words

• porre
• sottoporre
• Latin suppono

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
3. ^ a b c d e f g Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b c d e f Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b c d e Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
11. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
12. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3680