premise
premise
Latin
“Surprisingly, premise once meant a thing sent before.”
In Latin, praemissa is the feminine past participle of praemittere, "to send before." The form appears in late Latin logic for a statement placed first. It named the earlier part of an argument. The idea was ordering in time and position.
By the 12th century, scholastic Latin used praemissa for the statements that lead to a conclusion. The term was part of medieval logic. It marked what had to be granted before reasoning advanced. The word was technical and precise.
Old French took it as premisse in the 14th century. It appeared in legal and scholarly writing. The sense still focused on what is set before a conclusion. The sound pattern moved toward French.
English adopted premise in the 15th century, with 1387 often cited in academic contexts. It entered through Anglo-French legal and scholastic channels. It became the standard term in logic. The modern meaning stayed tied to argument structure.
Related Words
Today
A premise is a statement or proposition that supports a conclusion in logic or argument. In everyday speech it is a starting assumption or basis for reasoning.
It keeps the old sense of what is set before. The word signals the given ground on which a claim rests. "First said, then followed."
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