praesumptio

Forms

praesūmptiō f (genitive praesūmptiōnis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin praesūmō (“to take beforehand”) + -tiō.^[2][1][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Seneca,^[4] who writes in his letters that we give much weight to the presumption of all men, that is, to what everybody assumes.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Pliny the Younger uses it for enjoying something in advance: the anticipation of what one longs to reach is itself pleasant.^[2][5] In rhetoric Quintilian uses it for the figure the Greeks called πρόληψις (prólēpsis), answering an opponent's objections before he makes them.^[2][5] Apuleius uses it for obstinacy, of someone made proof against the pain of blows.^[2]

In Ecclesiastical Latin it came to mean boldness, presumption and arrogance, and in law a presumption, a probable conjecture about an uncertain act.^[6] Medieval Latin used it for a high-handed or arbitrary act, effrontery and violence, for disobedience, for a misdeed and for usurpation.^[7] Through Old French and Late Latin it is the source of English presumption.^[8]

Timeline

• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca uses it of a presupposition shared by all.^[2][4]
• c. 35–95/96 AD – Quintilian uses it as a term of rhetoric.^[2][4]
• c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius uses it of stubbornness.^[2][4]
• mid-13th century – English borrows it as presumption.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. The enjoyment of something in anticipation.^[2][5]
2. Presupposition, assumption.^[2]
3. (rhetoric) The anticipation of an opponent's objections, prolepsis.^[2][5]
4. Obstinacy, stubbornness.^[2]
5. (Ecclesiastical Latin) Boldness, arrogance, presumption.^[6]
6. (law) A presumption, a probable conjecture about an uncertain act.^[6]
7. (Medieval Latin) A high-handed or arbitrary act, effrontery, violence; disobedience; a misdeed; usurpation.^[7]

Word family

• praesumptiosus
• praesūmptuōsus

Related words

• English presumption

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
8. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com