hypothesis
Part of speech: noun
Morphological type: simple
Topics: grammar
human-sciences
linguistics
sciences
Etymology: Recorded since 1596, from Middle French hypothese, from Late Latin hypothesis, from Ancient Greek ὑπόθεσις (hupóthesis, “base, basis of an argument, supposition”, literally “a placing under”), itself from ὑποτίθημι (hupotíthēmi, “to set before, suggest”), from ὑπό (hupó, “below”) + τίθημι (títhēmi, “to put, place”). Compare hypothec.
Inflected forms:
form: hypotheses
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: A tentative conjecture explaining an observation, phenomenon or scientific problem and that can be tested by further observation, investigation, or experimentation.
pos: noun
examples: This hypothesis goes by many names, including group resistence, the threshold effect, and the gender paradox. Because the hypothesis holds such wide appeal, it is worth revisiting the logic behind it. The hypothesis is built on the factual observation that fewer females than males act antisocially.
Far too many of us have been taught in school that a scientist, in the course of trying to figure something out, will first come up with a "hypothesis" (a guess or surmise—not necessarily even an "educated" guess). ... [But t]he word "hypothesis" should be used, in science, exclusively for a reasoned, sensible, knowledge-informed explanation for why some phenomenon exists or occurs. An hypothesis can be as yet untested; can have already been tested; may have been falsified; may have not yet been falsified, although tested; or may have been tested in a myriad of ways countless times without being falsified; and it may come to be universally accepted by the scientific community. An understanding of the word "hypothesis," as used in science, requires a grasp of the principles underlying Occam's Razor and Karl Popper's thought in regard to "falsifiability"—including the notion that any respectable scientific hypothesis must, in principle, be "capable of" being proven wrong (if it should, in fact, just happen to be wrong), but none can ever be proved to be true. One aspect of a proper understanding of the word "hypothesis," as used in science, is that only a vanishingly small percentage of hypotheses could ever potentially become a theory.
gloss: An assumption taken to be true for the purpose of argument or investigation.
pos: noun
tags: general
gloss: The antecedent of a conditional statement.
pos: noun
Derived words: alternative hypothesis
aquatic ape hypothesis
Avogadro's hypothesis
berserker hypothesis
conspiracy hypothesis
continuum hypothesis
cosmic censorship hypothesis
counterhypothesis
critical brain hypothesis
dark forest hypothesis
documentary hypothesis
efficient market hypothesis
ergodic hypothesis
expectations hypothesis
Fisher hypothesis
five-minute hypothesis
Gaia hypothesis
generalized continuum hypothesis
God hypothesis
Griesbach hypothesis
Habakkuk hypothesis
hypothesist
hypothesize
hypothetic
hypothetical
hypothetically
induction hypothesis
inductive hypothesis
interface hypothesis
just-world hypothesis
level-ordering hypothesis
mafia hypothesis
Medea hypothesis
Monro-Kellie hypothesis
multihypothesis
null hypothesis
Omphalos hypothesis
Out of India hypothesis
ovulatory shift hypothesis
permanent income hypothesis
Prout's hypothesis
Rare Earth hypothesis
Red Queen hypothesis
Riemann hypothesis
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
Schinzel's hypothesis H
sexy son hypothesis
simulation hypothesis
subhypothesis
swaddling hypothesis
swoon hypothesis
trickle-down hypothesis
trickle down hypothesis
Wellhausen's hypothesis
working hypothesis
zombie hypothesis
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