Hypotheses

How to spell hypotheses

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce hypotheses

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does hypotheses mean?

1. nounMore than one hypothesis: proposed explanations put forward as starting points for further investigation or testing.

Hypotheses in a sentence

• The researchers tested several competing hypotheses before the trial began.

• Both hypotheses failed to account for the unexpected results.

Where does hypotheses come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This is the plural of hypothesis, which English took in the late 1500s from the Greek hupothesis, literally 'a placing under' or 'a foundation'. It was built from hupo, meaning 'under' or 'beneath', and thesis, meaning 'a placing' or 'a proposition' (the same thesis that gives us the word for an academic dissertation). The original sense was the groundwork or basis on which an argument rests, and from there it came to mean a supposition put forward as a starting point for reasoning. English reached it through Latin hypothesis, which had borrowed the Greek term wholesale. The spelling trap lives in the plural ending: because the word descends from a Greek noun ending in -is, its plural switches that to -es, giving hypotheses (pronounced 'seez'), not 'hypothesises'. The same Greek pattern shapes the plurals of analysis, crisis, and parenthesis.

How the word is built

• hypo- (under, beneath)
• thesis (a placing, a proposition)
• -es (Greek-style plural of -is to -es)