From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishhypothesishy‧poth‧e‧sis /haɪˈpɒθəsɪs $ -ˈpɑː-/ ●○○ AWL noun (plural hypotheses /-siːz/) 1 [countable]RPIDEA an idea that is suggested as an explanation for something, but that has not yet been proved to be true SYN theory One hypothesis is that the victim fell asleep while driving.prove/test/support etc a hypothesis We hope that further research will confirm our hypothesis.hypothesis about The authors reject the hypothesis about unemployment contributing to crime.2 [uncountable]GUESS ideas or guesses, rather than facts SYN speculation All this is mere hypothesis.
Examples from the Corpus
hypothesis• What we are attempting is a hypothesis in which I answer for him, while you ask me questions.• What this means is that there is no way that any hypothesis drawn from Marxist theory can be disproved by empirical investigation.• Possession of such direct observations on expectations would allow us to test the validity of the rational expectations hypothesis in two ways.• Our hypothesis is that the dolphins ate contaminated fish, and this affected the dolphins' immune system.• That, the authors conclude, casts doubt on the refuge hypothesis.• The results of our experiment confirmed this hypothesis.• This hypothesis generates an infinite set of indifference curves which are convex to the L axis.• The evidence, particularly of Willis, would support this working hypothesis.From Longman Business Dictionaryhypothesishy‧poth‧e‧sis /haɪˈpɒθəsəs-ˈpɑː-/ noun (plural hypotheses /-siːz/) [countable] STATISTICS an idea that can be tested to see if it is true or notThese results support the hypothesis that individuals are willing to pay more in order to live in communities that provide high-quality services. → null hypothesisOrigin hypothesis (1500-1600) Greek hypotithenai “to put under, hypothesize” 