Premise

How to spell premise

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce premise

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does premise mean?

1. nounA statement or proposition assumed to be true and used as the basis for an argument or conclusion.
2. verbTo base a theory, argument, or plan on a particular assumption.

Premise in a sentence

• noun

  The entire report rests on a single flawed premise.

• verb

  The planners premise their forecast on steady population growth.

• noun

  Her argument was logical once you accepted the opening premise.

• verb

  Economists often premise their models on rational behaviour.

Where does premise come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Premise comes from the Latin praemissa, meaning 'things sent or put before', which was the feminine form of praemittere, 'to send ahead'. That verb was built from prae, meaning 'before', and mittere, meaning 'to send' or 'to put', the same root that gives us 'mission', 'transmit', and 'dismiss'. Medieval logicians used praemissa for the propositions set out before a conclusion, the statements you put forward first so the argument can follow. English took the word through Old French in the 1300s, and the legal habit of stating 'the premises' (the matters set out earlier in a document) is why a building described earlier came to be called the premises. The shared mittere root explains the single 's' spelling: it is the same ending family as 'compromise' and 'demise', not the 'z' sound of 'prize'.

How the word is built

• prae- (before)
• miss/mit (to send, to put)
• -e