premise

1. 1.

   set forth beforehand, often as an explanation

   “He premised these remarks so that his readers might understand”

   Broaderset forth
2. 2.

   furnish with a preface or introduction

   “She always precedes her lectures with a joke”

   “He prefaced his lecture with a critical remark about the institution”

   Synonymsprecedeprefaceintroduce

   Broaderstate

   Narrowerpreambleprologize
3. 3.

   take something as preexisting and given

   Synonymspremiss

   Broaderpresuppose

1. 1.

   a statement that is assumed to be true and from which a conclusion can be drawn

   “on the assumption that he has been injured we can infer that he will not play”

   Synonymspremissassumption

   Broaderpostulate

   Narrowermajor premiseminor premisethesisconditionscenario

Other forms of premise

plural

premises·

past tense

premised·

present participle

premising·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about premise

What does premise mean?

premise means "set forth beforehand, often as an explanation". That is the primary sense; the word has 4 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in premise?

premise has 2 syllables: prem-ise. The stress falls on "prem". In IPA it is /ˈpɹɛmɪs/.

What is another word for premise?

Close synonyms include precede, preface, introduce, premiss, premiss. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is premise a common word?

premise is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.