Crossword clues for postulate
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Postulate \Pos"tu*late\, n. [L. postulatum a demand, request, prop. p. p. of postulare to demand, prob. a dim. of poscere to demand, prob. for porcscere; akin to G. forschen to search, investigate, Skr. prach to ask, and L. precari to pray: cf. F. postulat. See Pray.]
Something demanded or asserted; especially, a position or supposition assumed without proof, or one which is considered as self-evident; a truth to which assent may be demanded or challenged, without argument or evidence.
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(Geom.) The enunciation of a self-evident problem, in distinction from an axiom, which is the enunciation of a self-evident theorem.
The distinction between a postulate and an axiom lies in this, -- that the latter is admitted to be self-evident, while the former may be agreed upon between two reasoners, and admitted by both, but not as proposition which it would be impossible to deny.
--Eng. Cyc.
Postulate \Pos"tu*late\, a.
Postulated. [Obs.]
--Hudibras.
Postulate \Pos"tu*late\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Postulated; p. pr. & vb. n. Postulating.]
To beg, or assume without proof; as, to postulate conclusions.
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To take without express consent; to assume.
The Byzantine emperors appear to have . . . postulated a sort of paramount supremacy over this nation.
--W. Tooke. To invite earnestly; to solicit. [Obs.]
--Bp. Burnet.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1530s, "nominate to a church office," from Medieval Latin postulatus, past participle of postulare "to ask, demand; claim; require," probably formed from past participle of Latin poscere "ask urgently, demand," from *posk-to-, Italic inchoative of PIE root *prek- "to ask questions" (cognates: Sanskrit prcchati, Avestan peresaiti "interrogates," Old High German forskon, German forschen "to search, inquire"). Use in logic dates from 1640s, borrowed from Medieval Latin.
1580s, "a request, demand," from Latin postulatum "demand, request," properly "that which is requested," noun use of neuter past participle of postulare (see postulate (v.)). The sense in logic of "self-evident proposition" is from 1640s. The earlier noun in English was postulation (c.1400).
Wiktionary
Postulated. n. 1 Something assumed without proof as being self-evident or generally accepted, especially when used as a basis for an argument. 2 A fundamental element; a basic principle. 3 (context logic English) An axiom. 4 A requirement; a prerequisite. v
1 To assume as a truthful or accurate premise or axiom, especially as a basis of an argument. 2 (context ambitransitive Christianity historical English) To appoint or request one's appointment to an ecclesiastical office. 3 (context ambitransitive obsolete English) To request, demand or claim for oneself.
WordNet
n. (logic) a proposition that is accepted as true in order to provide a basis for logical reasoning [syn: posit]
v. maintain or assert; "He contended that Communism had no future" [syn: contend]
take as a given; assume as a postulate or axiom; "He posited three basic laws of nature" [syn: posit]
require as useful, just, or proper; "It takes nerve to do what she did"; "success usually requires hard work"; "This job asks a lot of patience and skill"; "This position demands a lot of personal sacrifice"; "This dinner calls for a spectacular dessert"; "This intervention does not postulates a patient's consent" [syn: necessitate, ask, need, require, take, involve, call for, demand] [ant: obviate]
Wikipedia
Usage examples of "postulate".
It was effaced as easily as it had been evoked by an allocution from Mr Candidate Mulligan in that vein of pleasantry which none better than he knew how to affect, postulating as the supremest object of desire a nice clean old man.
Most authorities now postulate that both anatomically modern humans and the classic Western European Neanderthals evolved from the pre-Neanderthal or early Homo sapiens types of hominids.
On the rise of philosophic reflection, these tacit presuppositions are first taken as dogmas, and later as postulates of scientific generalisation, and of the architectonic unification of science.
The periphrasis is rather a function of the moral vacuum in which the issue is raised, a condition that the novel postulates not as an exception but as the norm.
Being, since without unity these could not be each one thing: of course what is here meant is not the unity postulated as transcending Being but the unity predicable of the Ideas which constitute each several thing.
First, by the denial of their philosophical postulates, by the predication of immaterial substance, affirming the soul to be a spaceless point, its life an indivisible moment.
Every revolt of this kind has been a murder of Literature as signification: all have postulated the reduction of literary discourse to a simple semiological system, or even, in the case of poetry, to a pre-semiological system.
Let me therefore restate that any semiology postulates a relation between two terms, a signifier and a signified.
Carialle said, monitoring as the IT program recorded the correct uses of the verb, and postulated forms and suffixes for other verbs in its file, shuffling the onomatopoeic transliterations down like cards.
We might be optimistic about doing this, because the best current science of nature, quantum physics, is standardly interpreted as postulating uncaused events.
There are no grounds at the moment for postulating that the counterparts of electrical charge, coulomb attraction, and hence molecular adhesion were anything like the quantities we know.
The one prime postulate of these Oriental faiths the ground principle, never to be questioned any more than the central and stationary position of the earth in the Ptolemaic system is that all beings below the Infinite One are confined in the circle of existence, the whirl of births and deaths, by the consequences of their virtues and vices.
Penzias and Wilson were hearing was, of course, the noise that Gamow had postulated.
Now I lean to the postulates of Anaxagoras, and employ only organic and homoeomeric ingredients.
I postulated a Cape Buffalo, escaped while some South Africans were presenting it to a zoo worth its weight in Krugerrands to antsy politicians.