surmise

From Old French surmis, past participle of surmetre, surmettre (“to accuse”), from sur- (“upon”) + metre (“to put”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /sɜːˈmaɪz/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /sɚˈmaɪz/

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• Hyphenation: sur‧mise

surmise (countable and uncountable, plural surmises)

1. Thought, imagination, or conjecture, which may be based upon feeble or scanty evidence; suspicion; guess.

   surmises of jealousy or of envy

   • 1721, anonymous [Jonathan Swift], “The Sentiments of a Church of England-man with Respect to Religion and Government. Written in the Year, 1708”, in Miscellanies in Prose and Verse, 4th edition, Dublin: Printed by S. Fairbrother, book-seller, and are to be sold at his shop in Skinner-Row, over against the Tholsel, OCLC 744843032, page 61:

     But ſurely no Man whatſoever ought in Justice or good Manners to be charged with Principles he actually diſowns, unleſs his Practices do openly and without the leaſt Room for Doubt, contradict his Profeſſion: Not upon ſmall Surmiſes, or becauſe he has the Miſfortune to have Ill Men ſometimes agree with him in a few general Sentiments.

   • 1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter 32, in The Moon and Sixpence: A Novel (Heinemann's Colonial Library of Popular Fiction), London: William Heinemann, OCLC 22207227:

     The meeting had been devoid of incident. No word had been said to give me anything to think about, and any surmises I might make were unwarranted. I was intrigued.

2. Reflection; thought; posit.
   • c. 1606?, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies, London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, Act I, scene iii, page 133:

     My Thought, whoſe Murther yet is but fantaſticall, / Shakes ſo my ſingle ſtate of Man, / That Function is ſmother'd in ſurmiſe, / And nothing is, but what is not.

   • 1816 October, John Keats, “On First Looking into Chapman's Homer”, in H[enry] Buxton Forman, editor, The Complete Works of John Keats, volume I (Poems Published in 1817; Endymion), New York, N.Y.: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. Publishers, published 1900–1901, OCLC 18556005, page 47:

     Then felt I like some watcher of the skies / When a new planet swims into his ken; / Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes / He star'd at the Pacific—and all his men / Look'd at each other with a wild surmise— / Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

surmise (third-person singular simple present surmises, present participle surmising, simple past and past participle surmised)

1. To imagine or suspect; to conjecture; to posit with contestable premises.

• surmise in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• surmise in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911

• misuser

• IPA^(key): /syʁ.miz/
• Homophones: surmisent, surmises

surmise

1. first-person singular present indicative of surmiser
2. third-person singular present indicative of surmiser
3. first-person singular present subjunctive of surmiser
4. third-person singular present subjunctive of surmiser
5. second-person singular imperative of surmiser

• mûrisse