From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishpresumepre‧sume /prɪˈzjuːm $ -ˈzuːm/ ●●○ S3 AWL verb 1 [transitive]THINK SO/NOT BE SURE to think that something is true, although you are not certain SYN assume Each of you will make a speech, I presume? ‘Are his parents still alive?’ 'I presume so.’presume that I presume we’ll be there by six o'clock.presume somebody/something to be somebody/something From the way he talked, I presumed him to be your boss.be presumed to do something The temple is presumed to date from the first century BC.2 [transitive]SCLTHINK SO/NOT BE SURE to accept something as true until it is shown to not be true, especially in law SYN assume We must presume innocence until we have evidence of guilt.be presumed dead/innocent etc Their nephew was missing, presumed dead.3 [intransitive] formalRUDE/IMPOLITE to behave without respect or politeness by doing something that you have no right to dopresume to do something I would never presume to tell you what to do.4 [transitive usually in present tense] formalBELIEVE to accept something as being true and base something else on it SYN presuppose The Ancient History course presumes some knowledge of Greek.presume that I presume that someone will be there to meet us when we arrive.5 → presume on/upon somebody’s friendship/generosity etc→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
presume• The price includes all your transportation and hotels, I presume?• Was this the treatment Roman meted out to any female who presumed a little too much, grew a little too possessive?• They say Mind presumed an inquiry would involve the families and those advising them and we were astonished when it did not.• One presumes his wife Eimear knew that when she married him.• As a 19 year-old student, I presume I am one of these.• The defendant is presumed innocent until proved guilty.• Bhagat Singh, the presumed killer, eluded arrest and quickly achieved the status of hero.• The committee presumed that its decisions would be carried out.• It presumes that reality is dynamic rather than static, and therefore seeks relationships between ideas, to aim at synthesis.• Many scientists presumed the new damage to the forests to be the result of higher levels of pollution.• Persons leaving a Communist country were normally presumed to be fleeing persecution.• This, she presumed, was life.be presumed to do something• There were presumed to be as many as the food supply could sustain.• The company shall be presumed to be carrying on its business as a going concern.• Following her hanging, a horse and cart set out from the Grassmarket carrying what was presumed to be her dead body.• Small-town dwellers feel impervious to or removed from social danger and violence; big-city folks are presumed to be numb to them.• An algorithm purporting to match what is presumed to be operating in a human brain would need to be a stupendous thing.• Men who clean and wash are presumed to have a wife in hospital.• The killers are presumed to have fled to Mexico.• Universal concepts denote phenomena which are presumed to occur universally, regardless of historical epoch or type of society.• Officially, no one was permitted to resign from B.P.; we were presumed to know too much.be presumed dead/innocent etc• An aerial search of the area proved fruitless, and they were presumed dead.• Nineteen were killed and two went missing and are presumed dead.• The mysterious Mr Kipper has never been traced and Susie is presumed dead.• He was presumed dead, but where?presume that• He did not say so, but I presumed that a mutual friend had told him about my separation and divorce.• The bureaucrats in their Brussels bastion wrongly presumed that bigger is better.• They pre-knew, pre-accepted, presumed that Casey was hyperactive.• They presume that changing values are declining values and seek some malign influence to blame.• I presume that I have been called here to pursue the same system, and to lead you against the enemy.• He said that he had presumed that Khumalo was speaking on behalf of Buthelezi, but realized that he was incorrect.• I can only presume that Lucker has failed in the macho stakes.• If not, one presumes that radiography would have either shown no lesion or not contributed to management of disease.Origin presume (1300-1400) French présumer, from Latin praesumere, from sumere “to take” 