hypothesishy‧poth‧e‧sis /haɪˈpɒθəsɪs $ -ˈpɑː-/ ●○○ AWL noun (plural hypotheses /-siːz/) 
One hypothesis is that the victim fell asleep while driving.prove/test/support etc a hypothesis We hope that further research will confirm our hypothesis.hypothesis about The authors reject the hypothesis about unemployment contributing to crime.2[uncountable] ideas or guesses, rather than facts SYN speculation: All this is mere hypothesis.
WORD ORIGINhypothesis
Origin:
1500-1600 Greek hypotithenai ‘to put under, hypothesize’EXAMPLES FROM OTHER DICTIONARIES
- Our hypothesis is that the dolphins ate contaminated fish, and this affected the dolphins' immune system.
- The results of our experiment confirmed this hypothesis.
- Possession of such direct observations on expectations would allow us to test the validity of the rational expectations hypothesis in two ways.
- That, the authors conclude, casts doubt on the refuge hypothesis.
- The evidence, particularly of Willis, would support this working hypothesis.
- This hypothesis generates an infinite set of indifference curves which are convex to the L axis.
- What this means is that there is no way that any hypothesis drawn from Marxist theory can be disproved by empirical investigation.
- What we are attempting is a hypothesis in which I answer for him, while you ask me questions.
Longman Language Activatoran idea or set of ideas that explains something
an idea or set of ideas that is intended to explain something, especially in science: · This theory helps to explain how animals communicate with each other.theory that: · It's my theory that the murderer knew his victim quite well.· There's a theory that Kennedy was killed by the CIA.theory about: · There have been a lot of theories about the meaning of dreams.somebody's theory of something: · Darwin's Theory of Evolution· Einstein's theory of relativityeconomic/political etc theory: · Atkin taught political theory at Hunter College.
plural hypotheses formal an idea that is based on very few facts and that you cannot be sure is right: · Various hypotheses are possible regarding the nature and structure of the world.· The results of our experiment confirmed this hypothesis.
a statement or idea that you accept as being true and use as a base for developing other ideas: · American justice works on the premise that an accused person is innocent until they are proved guilty.· I believe his whole argument is based on a false premise.
a way of explaining something about life, society, etc: · Ideas and customs used to be passed on intact down the generations.· Do you agree generally with Marx's ideas?idea about: · medieval ideas about the origins of the universeidea that: · How old is the idea that there is life after death?idea of: · Ideas of how society should function have changed dramatically in the last 200 years.
a way of explaining something about life, society, etc, that people often think is a little stupid or old-fashioned: · Many widely-held notions about crime have come from the cinema, magazines, or novels.notion of: · Modern society does not always correspond to classical notions of democracy.a vague/absurd/fanciful etc notion: · Humans still hold on to the absurd notion that we are the only intelligent beings in the Universe.
someone's idea of how something is done, or how it should be done: · She thinks that marriage is an old-fashioned concept.concept of: · What's your concept of an ideal society?
WORD SETScausation, nouncosmogony, noundeconstruction, noundeterminism, noundialectic, nounexistentialism, nounfree will, nounhumanism, nounhypothesis, nounidealism, nouninduction, nouninductive, adjectivelateral thinking, nounMarxism, nounmaterialism, nounmetaphysical, adjectivemetaphysics, nounnihilism, nounontology, nounphilosopher, nounphilosophical, adjectivephilosophize, verbpositivism, nounpostulate, nounprecept, nounsolipsism, nounsyllogism, nounTao, nounTaoism, nounthinker, nounthought, nountranscendentalism, nounutilitarian, adjectiveutilitarianism, nounyang, nounyin, nounyin and yang, noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM THE ENTRY We hope that further research will confirm our hypothesis.COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES an attempt to refute Darwin’s theoriesCOLLOCATIONS FROM THE CORPUSADJECTIVE
We hope that further research will confirm our hypothesis.· Many theories have been put forward as to the building’s original purpose.
an attempt to refute Darwin’s theories· An alternative hypothesis, which has considerable intuitive plausibility, needs to be refuted before this assumption can be justified.· Thus no evidence to support this alternative hypothesis is available.
· Friedman's statement of the natural rate hypothesis went a long way towards reconciling such evidence with basic classical theory.· In later versions of the natural rate hypothesis, Friedman was tacitly to abandon this view altogether.
· This gives variables of exactly known distribution, so that we can calculate the significance of any given peak under the null hypothesis.· The researcher may actually expect that the null hypothesis is faulty and should be rejected in favor of the alternative H1.· The null hypothesis that can then be tested by using the F distribution as explained in chapter 3.· The use of the null hypothesis does have one very practical use.· When this indicated a probability of less than 0.05 for the null hypothesis Student-Newman-Keuls analyses were performed to determine which values differed significantly.· Departures from the null hypothesis were assessed at the 5% significance level.· For the short observations, the null hypothesis is that only Poisson noise is present.· The null hypothesis of no heterogeneity can not be rejected in any of the variants of the model.
· We first consider tests of the rational expectations hypothesis in those relatively few cases when the expected variable is directly measured.· It was this criticism of the adaptive expectations hypothesis that led to the development of the rational expectations hypothesis.· Possession of such direct observations on expectations would allow us to test the validity of the rational expectations hypothesis in two ways.· This aggregate supply curve is of fundamental importance to the macroeconomic policy conclusions often drawn from the rational expectations hypothesis.· Therefore the rational expectations hypothesis suggests a valid method of incorporating additional information when estimating macroeconomic models which contain expectation terms.· Direct observations on what people are expecting allow a second and stronger test of the rational expectations hypothesis.· Studies using those that do exist provide little support for the rational expectations hypothesis.
· Like Laplace in his famous reply to Napoleon, Humean atheists have no need for the theistic hypothesis.· The third, theistic, hypothesis of creation is by far the best explanation for the existence of the universe.· Far from this being the case, it is exactly what might be expected if the theistic hypothesis is true.· It points us to the theistic hypothesis rather than to the necessity hypothesis.· The theistic hypothesis postulates one necessarily actual reality, the mind that conceives all possibilities.· Some interpretations, at least, of the hypothesis of natural selection do conflict with the theistic hypothesis on three main counts.· The ultimate evolutionary victory, on the theistic hypothesis, does not go to the most ruthless exterminators and most fecund replicators.
· The counsellor constructs a working hypothesis which attempts to see meaning and connections in the counsellee's social performance.· The working hypothesis is tested and refined through the process of discussion and questioning.· But on the whole, a gradually rising population throughout the ninth century seems an acceptable working hypothesis.· Recognizing the internalized self-image of the counsellee is an important perceptual skill in arriving at a working hypothesis.· A recurrent working hypothesis of gene-culture coevolutionary theory is that the epigenetic rules are shaped by natural selection over many generations.· The evidence, particularly of Willis, would support this working hypothesis.
NOUN· Romaine, Le Page and Tabouret-Keller and others have raised serious theoretical objections to the continuum hypothesis itself, as described above.
· Friedman's statement of the natural rate hypothesis went a long way towards reconciling such evidence with basic classical theory.· In later versions of the natural rate hypothesis, Friedman was tacitly to abandon this view altogether.
VERB· This project will help us to confirm or reject this hypothesis.· The magnetic hypothesis of homing is not yet confirmed.· The olfactory hypothesis has not been confirmed either.· An experiment of Charles Brown has confirmed Marler's hypothesis.· This study can not provide data to confirm or refute this hypothesis, however.· She first confirmed Watson's hypothesis that in the tobacco mosaic virus small protein sub-units were arranged in a helical fashion.· Do our results confirm this hypothesis?
· Such results may be explained by the hypothesis that serotonin is more responsible for regulating mood than for controlling alcohol cravings.· This bizarre behavior is explained by the efficient-market hypothesis, which we will discuss at the end of this chapter.
· The scientist should try to prove the hypothesis wrong.
· This project will help us to confirm or reject this hypothesis.· As previously suggested, a researcher is usually interested in setting up a hypothesis which he really would like to reject.· Decisions to retain or reject an hypothesis are fairly straightforwardly determined by the results of experimental tests.· Baillie etal. reject the speculative efficiency hypothesis in all cases.· The application of these tests may increase the probability of rejecting the null hypothesis when it is in fact true.
· Animal research has been much more consistent in suggesting this hypothesis than human research has.
· Subsequent studies have supported the hypothesis that population mixing can influence the incidence of childhood leukaemia.· These results support the hypothesis that individuals are willing to pay more in order to live in communities that provide high-quality services.· This supports the hypothesis that adaptation is due to visual change.· Some epidemiological studies support the Fathalla hypothesis.· This tends to support the hypothesis that although customers will complain about price increases it does not necessarily alter their visiting behaviour.· As a result, this supports the hypothesis that men are more specialised in the left-brain than women.· Seventeen pages of notes support his hypothesis.· The finding that their number is neither affected by ranitidine nor by cisapride treatment does not support this hypothesis.
· The project will test this hypothesis using data collected from teachers and from pupils.· In Hawaii, many efforts were made to test the vaccination hypothesis.· Accordingly, we tested the hypothesis that postoperative pain decreases subcutaneous oxygen partial pressure.· Thereafter he would be testing his hypothesis.· However, to fully test this hypothesis, it was necessary to investigate more than one domain.· A serious problem arises in attempting to test this hypothesis empirically: how can trade union militancy be measured?· If the cases of so called paradoxical pain were opioid sensitive why not test that hypothesis directly?· Julia set out to test this hypothesis.
WORD FAMILYnounhypothesisadjectivehypotheticalverbhypothesizeadverbhypothetically
1[countable] an idea that is suggested as an explanation for something, but that has not yet been proved to be true SYN theory: One hypothesis is that the victim fell asleep while driving.prove/test/support etc a hypothesis We hope that further research will confirm our hypothesis.hypothesis about The authors reject the hypothesis about unemployment contributing to crime.2[uncountable] ideas or guesses, rather than facts SYN speculation: All this is mere hypothesis.