suspicion
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /səˈspɪʃ.ən/
rhymes: -ɪʃən
Forms: form: suspicions
form: suspition
form: 'spicion
Etymology: From Middle English suspecioun, borrowed from Latin suspīciō, suspīciōnem, from suspicere, from sub- (“up to”) with specere (“to look at”). Perhaps partly through the influence of Old French sospeçon (or rather the Anglo-Norman form suspecioun). Equivalent to suspect + -ion.
Senses: examples: text: […]purſued his vnneighbourly purpoſe in ſuch ſort: that hee being the ſtronger perſwader, and ſhe (belike) too credulous in beleeuing or elſe ouer-feeble in reſiſting, from priuate imparlance, they fell to action; and continued their cloſe fight a long while together, vnſeene and vvithout ſuſpition, no doubt to their equall ioy and contentment.
ref: 1620, Giovanni Bocaccio, translated by John Florio, The Decameron, Containing an Hundred Pleaſant Nouels: Wittily Diſcourſed, Betweene Seuen Honourable Ladies, and Three Noble Gentlemen, Isaac Iaggard, Nouell 8, The Eighth Day:
text: His unruly hair was slicked down with water, and as Jessamy introduced him to Miss Brindle his face assumed a cherubic innocence which would immediately have aroused the suspicions of anyone who knew him.
ref: 1967, Barbara Sleigh, Jessamy, Sevenoaks, Kent: Bloomsbury, published 1993, →ISBN, page 96:
text: "When it comes to strangers with guns," I told her, "I think suspicion is more likely to keep you alive than trust."
ref: 1993, Octavia Butler, chapter 11, in The Parable of the Sower:
text: Given these entrenched ideological assumptions about the colonial order, it is no wonder that the state and those groups with an interest in the status quo viewed with suspicion and hostility any challenges to the fixed and "natural" boundaries between different sorts of people.
ref: 2009, Andrew B. Fisher, Matthew O'Hara, “Forward”, in Andrew B. Fisher, Matthew O'Hara, editors, Imperial Subjects: Race and Identity in Colonial Latin America, page 4:
glosses: The act of suspecting something or someone, especially of something wrong.
glosses: The condition of being suspected.
examples: text: In former days every tavern of repute kept such a room for its own select circle, a club, or society, of habitués, who met every evening, for a pipe and a cheerful glass.[…]Strangers might enter the room, but they were made to feel that they were there on sufferance: they were received with distance and suspicion.
ref: 1892, Walter Besant, chapter III, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC:
glosses: Uncertainty, doubt.
examples: text: a suspicion of a smile
text: The features are mild but expressive, with just a suspicion[…]of saturnine or sarcastic humor.
ref: 1879, Adolphus William Ward, Chaucer:
text: Keep hot for 3 minutes, then turn right side up, polish the top with a suspicion of butter, cut in quarters, and send to table.
ref: 2014 July 3, Dorothy Hartley, Food In England: A complete guide to the food that makes us who we are, Hachette UK, →ISBN:
glosses: A trace, or slight indication.
glosses: The imagining of something without evidence.
Synonyms: inkling
Derived terms: Caesar's wife must be above suspicion
index of suspicion
sneaking suspicion
sneaky suspicion
suspect
suspicious
undue suspicion