English
premise
Premise comes from Medieval Latin premissa ‘set before’, and goes back to Latin mittō ‘to send’.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEmittōas mittere‘to send’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEpraemittere‘to send or put before’
- Medieval Latinc. 600–1500premissa‘set before’
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400premisse
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500premise
- Englishearliest quotation 1591premise
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
Earlier history uncertain.
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEmittōas mittere‘to send’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEpraemittere‘to send or put before’
- Medieval Latinc. 600–1500premissa‘set before’
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400premisse
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500premise
- Englishearliest quotation 1591premise
Earliest quotation: 1591, William Shakespeare, The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]: “the premised flames of the last day”.
The story
Sense 4, a piece of real estate arose from the misinterpretation of the word by property owners while reading title deeds where the word was used with the legal sense.
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *mey- ‘change’
mean, community, common, met, minute, communication, minister, meal, minor, ministry, menu, mutual, communicate, communist, immune, min, ammunition, immunity, mere, minus, municipality, communal, mole, communism, communion, mural, ammo, compromise, noodle, moor, commune, mayhem, remuneration, mite, monolith, communiqué, munition, minstrel, mitra, meiosis, 71 more
through Proto-Indo-European *meyth₂- ‘exchange, remove’
message, mad, miss, mute, mutant, madden, mutate, transmutation, commutative, commutation, mutable, molt, misnomer, moult, 15 more
through Latin mittō ‘to send’
committee, commission, mess, mission, admit, commit, missile, transmit, dismiss, intermittent, omit, amit, emit, commissary, permissive, commissar, missive, remiss, 33 more
Today it means
noun A proposition antecedently supposed or proved; something previously stated or assumed as the basis of further argument; a condition; a supposition.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Latin mittō / premise