suppositiousadj.

1600 in R. Pitcairn Criminal Trials Scotl. (1833) II. 252 Some of yow thinks that he is bot ane suppositius man, and that his depositioun is rather a policie then any veritie.

1604 Abp. G. Abbot Reasons Dr. Hill Vnmasked viii. 308 If the rule of Eusebius be good,..the Canonical volumes may be distiguished from the Apocryphal & suppositious.

1624 R. Montagu Immediate Addresse 212 The testimony produced is none of his: It is suppositious, and a counterfeit.

1672 A. Marvell Rehearsal Transpros'd i. 138 The only question..was..whether it [sc. the child] was not spurious or suppositious.

1768 W. Blackstone Comm. Laws Eng. iii. xxiii. 362 When a widow feigns herself with child, in order to exclude the next heir, and a suppositious birth is suspected to be intended.

1796 N.-Y. Mag. Nov. 600/2 He is perhaps imbibing so deeply the constitutional ill qualities of his suppositious nurse, as to contaminate both his body and mind.

1815 M. Pilkington Celebrity III. 130 With the intention of ordering the suppositious Mrs Johnson to quit her roof.

1863 C. Redding Yesterday & To-day III. 275 Suppositious letters between the Rev. James Hackman and Miss Ray.

1903 Birds & Nature Sept. 61/2 The female bird, sitting on her nest, is rearing a suppositious and spurious progeny; while the young cuckoo..snatches away all the food from the other young ones.

1974 G. Watson New Cambr. Bibliography Eng. Lit. I. 591–2 (heading) Doubtful or suppositious works.

2002 R. L. Greaves Glimpses of Glory 617 About the suppositious authorship of Exhortation to Peace and Unity Among All That Fear God (1688) there can be no doubt.

1655 J. Howell New Vol. of Familiar Lett. (ed. 3) ii. 89 I tearm the gold Mine he went to discover, an ayrie and suppositious [1647 supposititious] Mine.

1781 T. Warton Hist. Eng. Poetry III. p. vii Who..is often a monarch that never existed, and who seldom, whether real or suppositious, has any concern with the circumstances of the narrative.

1793 A. Seward Let. to Parr 3 Feb. in Wks. (1828) VIII. 460 The suppositious treasons, forged and alleged.

1824 Retrosp. Rev. 9 203 The characters..of Chaucer, whether in the suppositious adventures of the Pilgrims, or the comic stories they relate, bear alike the authentic stamp of nature.

1896 Med. World Feb. 47/1 Nearly allied to such cases are those of hypochondria and spermatophobia, with suppositious impotence.

1959 B. F. Huppé Doctr. & Poetry vi. 237 Would not Abraham, the warrior, have come more readily to the mind of Brythnoth's audience than a distant, suppositious hero of the pagan past.

1994 A. Dilnot in J. N. Turner & P. Williams Happy Couple ii. vii. 62 Redgauntlet is set in 1765, and its main historical concern is with a suppositious visit to Britain by the Young Pretender.

1660 J. Harding tr. Paracelsus Archidoxis i. 98 This seems to have been inserted Suppositiously.

1693 W. Wotton tr. L. E. Du Pin New Hist. Eccl. Writers II. 30 Books..that were suppositiously obtruded upon the World by Hereticks.

1782 Answer to Pamphlet by C. F. Sheridan III. 24 What was it that made 12000 and not 13000 troops suppositiously legal in Ireland?

1829 Western Jrnl. Med. & Physical Sci. Mar. 554 The action of the body under vascular excitement is powerful, voluntary and determinate, and when moved, it is by the consent of the will, and for the accomplishment of some object, either really or suppositiously, within the reach of the individual.

1862 D. Masson in Macmillan's Mag. Aug. 324 The career suppositiously assigned to men of his class in most Art and Culture novels.

1913 H. James Small Boy & Others i. 12 A call with my father, conveying me presumably for fond exhibition (since if my powers were not exhibitional my appearance and my long fair curls..suppositiously were), on one of our aunts.

1992 I. Hampsher-Monk in J. Melling & J. Barry Culture in Hist. i. 56 The economic explanation..relies crucially on a knowledge of the outcomes which enables us to work back to suppositiously derived statements about the rates or fact of substitutability of game and agricultural produce.

1661 J. Davies tr. D. Blondel Treat. Sibyls i. xx. 52 For this Discourse was an earnest Charge against the Christians, concerning the Suppositiousness of the Eight Books.

1780 H. Croft Love & Madness (new ed.) 209 If C. thought them to be the same, C. is an original in poetry only, not in suppositiousness.

1820 Ladies' Monthly Museum Aug. 102 After a trial of considerable length, the suppositiousness of the child was completely established.

1862 Jrnl. Amer. Oriental Soc. 7 122 Suppositious tradition must not be reported by one who is aware of its character, let it signify what it may, unless accompanied with a declaration of its suppositiousness.

1978 Amer. Hist. Rev. 83 720/1 The hollowness of the Whigs' subterfuge of James II's abdication, the suppositiousness of popular right, and of course, the eternal ‘Church in Danger’ issue.

1983 Paris (Texas) News 6 Jan. 2/1 The uncertain status of the inclusion of recreation..as a project purpose, lends an air of suppositiousness to the Corps' claims of tremendous recreational benefits in this project.

2002 H. M. Ravven & L. E. Goodman Jewish Themes in Spinoza's Philos. 56 Spinoza is urging bootstrapping, but he avoids suppositiousness by acknowledging an a priori element, pure ideas, stemming ultimately from the purest, the idea of God.