Word family noun supposition presupposition adjective supposed verb suppose presuppose adverb supposedly
From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishpresupposepre‧sup‧pose /ˌpriːsəˈpəʊz $ -ˈpoʊz/ verb [transitive] formal 1 THINK SO/NOT BE SUREto depend on something that is believed to exist or to be true SYN assume The idea of heaven presupposes the existence of God.presuppose that Your argument presupposes that Dickens was a social reformer.2 THINK SO/NOT BE SUREto have to happen if something is true Without struggle there can be no progress, and struggle presupposes winners and losers.→ See Verb tableExamples from the Corpus
presuppose• Their whole system of belief presupposes a benevolent God.• Such questions are not only perennially interesting; answers to them are presupposed by much of what counts as human knowledge.• Economic liberalism, which presupposed equal competition among individuals, was no more than a pious fiction.• Accountability usually presupposes evaluation, but evaluation does not necessarily imply accountability.• For example, why do we accept what we have always presupposed rather than proved?• It presupposes that either this government has all the authority it claims over its population or it has none.• Your argument presupposes that it does not matter who rules - that things will remain as they are whoever is in power.• That rather presupposes that the firm's books are prepared correctly.• Both found their analyses in a non-reflexive mode which presupposes the truth of a Marxist analysis of power.presuppose that• A media education programme therefore presupposes that a group of people will continue to work together for several years.• All arguments on behalf of the unities of time and place presuppose that a stage representation can be mistaken for reality.• Conversely, the perception of replacement presupposes that no such identity could be established at the correspondence stage.• These properties of conservation along with stability of boundaries despite the construction of indefinitely many new elements presuppose that structures are self-regulating.• That rather presupposes that the firm's books are prepared correctly.• MacLeay's view of natural relationships presupposed that the living world is constructed according to a rational plan.• This presupposed that virtually all human behaviour was the result of social conditioning.• We can not even conclude that we do not exist without presupposing that we do. 