postulated


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pos·tu·late

(pŏs′chə-lāt′)
tr.v. pos·tu·lat·ed, pos·tu·lat·ing, pos·tu·lates
1. To assume or assert the truth, reality, or necessity of, especially as a basis of an argument: "We can see individuals, but we can't see providence; we have to postulate it" (Aldous Huxley).
2. To propose as a hypothesis or explanation: Researchers now postulate that the disease is caused by a virus.
3. To assume as a premise or axiom; take for granted.
4. Archaic To make claim for; demand.
n. (pŏs′chə-lĭt, -lāt′)
1. Something assumed without proof as being self-evident or generally accepted, especially when used as a basis for an argument: "the postulate that there is little moral difference between the superpowers" (Henry A. Kissinger).
2. A fundamental element; a basic principle.
3. Mathematics An axiom.
4. Archaic A requirement; a prerequisite.
[Medieval Latin postulāre, postulāt-, to nominate to a bishopric, to assume, from Latin, to request; see prek- in Indo-European roots.]
pos′tu·la′tion n.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
References in classic literature ?
He manifested in his dog's brain the free agency of life, by which all the generations of metaphysicians have postulated God, and by which all the deterministic philosophers have been led by the nose despite their clear denouncement of it as sheer illusion.
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The objections to the act (in the case of presentations) are not valid against the believing in the case of beliefs, because the believing is an actual experienced feeling, not something postulated, like the act.
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Now, for the first time since Newton, two American inventors: Richard and Robert Dickson of AINW LLC, a Kirkland, Washington intellectual property development firm, provide a coherent and logical explanation of gravity not as a universal force, but rather as a universal effect of matter interacting with a postulated quantum level wormhole matrix of space-time, which is motionally active, appearing and disappearing, constantly at the Planck unit level.
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First, a key document used in the development of DOE's DBT was the Postulated Threat to U.S.
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Mary Eberts of the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) warned that "such a change is bound to set off ripples in future cases," but still postulated that, in practical terms, the addition of a separate charge would have minimal impact in sentencing.
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A New York Times article, published on the same day the Committee met, postulated that, in the event of an emergency such as a terrorist attack, flaws in the memorial's design could create dangerous bottlenecks during a panicked mass exodus on the structure's vast subterranean floors.
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"For over 50 years, scientists have postulated that [the receptor] would be a good target" for insecticides, Cordova says.
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Staged on the occasion of the hundred-year anniversary of the watershed formulation of E=[mc.sup.2], "Goddess in the Doorway" exuded a gravity that, for all its pretense to science, was really more about waking dreams and kinesthetic apparitions than postulated equations.
Sophie von Hellermann: Greene Naftali Gallery

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