postulate
Other forms: postulates; postulated; postulating
Assume something or present it as a fact and you postulate it. Physicists postulate the existence of parallel universes, which is a little mind-blowing.
Anyone who has suffered through geometry class is familiar with some of the greatest hits, like Euclid's postulate and the point-line-plane postulate. Those are propositions that have to be assumed for other mathematical statements to follow logically. As a verb (pronounced "POST-you-late") it describes the act of presenting an idea, theory, belief, or concept.
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maintain or assert
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require as useful, just, or proper
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take as a given; assume as a postulate or axiomsynonyms: posit
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(logic) a proposition that is accepted as true in order to provide a basis for logical reasoningsynonyms: posittypes:Bayes' postulate(statistics) the difficulty of applying Bayes' theorem is that the probabilities of the different causes are seldom known, in which case it may be postulated that they are all equal (sometimes known as postulating the equidistribution of ignorance)assumption, premise, premissa statement that is assumed to be true and from which a conclusion can be drawnmajor premise, major premissthe premise of a syllogism that contains the major term (which is the predicate of the conclusion)minor premise, minor premiss, subsumptionthe premise of a syllogism that contains the minor term (which is the subject of the conclusion)thesisan unproved statement put forward as a premise in an argumentcondition, precondition, stipulationan assumption on which rests the validity or effect of something elsescenarioa postulated sequence of possible eventswarrant(rhetoric) an assumption or underlying belief that connects evidence to a claimtype of:proposition(logic) a statement that affirms or denies something and is either true or false
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Vocabulary lists containing postulate
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Freak the Mighty tells the story of an unlikely friendship between an awkward, lumbering outcast and a physically challenged genius. Together, the two boys become a force for good.
In the futuristic World State, the genetically altered citizens are happy and free of pain—but they cannot exercise free will. Learn these words from Huxley's influential dystopian novel, first published in 1932.