dynamic
toggle menu
menu
vocabulary
1000+ books

hypothesis
in a sentence
grouped by contextual meaning

hypothesis as in:  a study to test her hypothesis

show 10 more with this conextual meaning
  • He hypothesized the existence of Pluto before its discovery.
    hypothesized = proposed a seemingly reasonable, but unproven, idea
    standard suffix: The suffix "-ize" converts a word to a verb. This is the same pattern you see in words like apologize, theorize, and dramatize.
  • ["short man's complex" or "unresolved Oedipal conflict"]  Although there may be some truth in both hypotheses, this sort of posthumous off-the-rack psychoanalysis is a dubious, highly speculative enterprise that inevitably demeans and trivializes the absent analysand.   (source)
    hypotheses = ideas that are seemingly reasonable, but unproven
  • We've made some hypotheses, some suppositions, but nobody really knows what the nests were like.   (source)
  • And when X is between 1 and 3, the population gets bigger and then it stays stable like this (and these graphs are hypothetical, too).   (source)
    hypothetical = based on something that is seemingly reasonable, but unproven
  • Hypothesis, demonstration, conclusion, if A then not B.   (source)
    hypothesis = an idea to be tested
  • The "culture of honor" hypothesis says that it matters where you're from, not just in terms of where you grew up or where your parents grew up, but in terms of where your great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents grew up and even where your great-great-great-grandparents grew up.   (source)
    hypothesis = a seemingly reasonable, but unproven, idea
  • The article said that the commission was working on the hypothesis that Wennerström had probably been tipped off at the last minute about the impending disclosures.   (source)
  • The hypothesis of unconscious motivation explains why the murderers perceived innocuous and relatively unknown victims as provocative and thereby suitable targets for aggression.   (source)
    hypothesis = a seemingly reasonable, but unproven, explanation
  • "There's a market for Rearden Metal and I intend to take full advantage of it."
    "Isn't the market somewhat hypothetical? The public response to your metal has not been encouraging."   (source)
    hypothetical = based on assumptions rather than facts
  • We have here a hypothesis of the First and the Second Murderer, as the great Shakespeare would put it.   (source)
    hypothesis = a seemingly reasonable, but unproven, explanation
▲ show less (of above)
show 89 more with this conextual meaning
  • But we are bound to exhaust all other hypotheses before falling back upon this one.   (source)
    hypotheses = explanations that are seemingly reasonable, but unproven
  • It must be, if the nebular hypothesis has any truth, older than our world; and long before this earth ceased to be molten, life upon its surface must have begun its course.   (source)
    hypothesis = a seemingly reasonable, but unproven, idea
  • I was all adrift amongst a thousand contradictory hypotheses, but I could not lay hold of one.   (source)
    hypotheses = ideas or explanations that are seemingly reasonable, but unproven
  • When thus perplexed—and cogitating, among other hypotheses, whether the letter might not have been one of those decorations which the white men used to contrive in order to take the eyes of Indians—I happened to place it on my breast.   (source)
    hypotheses = explanations that are seemingly reasonable, but unproven
  • But, sir, when I said so to myself on rising this morning, and when I looked round the room to gather courage and comfort from the cheerful aspect of each familiar object in full daylight, there — on the carpet — I saw what gave the distinct lie to my hypothesis, — the veil, torn from top to bottom in two halves!   (source)
    hypothesis = a seemingly reasonable, but unproven, idea or explanation
  • He really believed in the spiritual advantages, and meant that his life henceforth should be the more devoted because of those later sins which he represented to himself as hypothetic, praying hypothetically for their pardon:—"if I have herein transgressed."   (source)
    hypothetic = possibly real, but not known for sure to be real
  • You must accept all consequences of that hypothesis.   (source)
    hypothesis = a seemingly reasonable, but unproven, idea
  • But supplementary to this, it has hypothetically occurred to me, that...   (source)
    hypothetically = based on an idea that seems reasonable, but is unproven
  • "He is worn out," said Debray; "besides, he could not well appear in public, since he has been the dupe of the Cavalcanti, who, it appears, presented themselves to him with false letters of credit, and cheated him out of 100,000 francs upon the hypothesis of this principality."   (source)
    hypothesis = reasonable belief
  • This was a reference to two hypotheses, both involving the fundamental nature of the laws of the universe.†   (source)
  • Even though these hypotheses have been tested over time, I think you were perfectly right to test them again.†   (source)
  • There was a time one would have received a bright and intricate response that would in turn have unfolded silly and weighty questions to which Emily gave her best answers; and while the meandering hypotheses they indulged were hard to recall in detail now, she knew she never spoke so well as she had to her eleven-year-old last-born.†   (source)
  • This absurd jealousy, grounded as it was in mere hypotheses, proved that he considered her fidelity an unconditional postulate of their relationship.†   (source)
  • But this diverse army of experts now marched out a phalanx of hypotheses to explain the drop in crime.†   (source)
  • One of those cold, methodical types, all about hypotheses and control groups.†   (source)
  • "was the single most important article ever written that debunked the pervasive linguistic fallacies associated with cognitive-deficit hypotheses"—that is, the fallacy that speakers of Black English were somehow mentally backward.†   (source)
  • One of our hypotheses seemed to be confirmed a few months later when we were joined by Kathy, who had indeed been a member of the High Organ.†   (source)
  • They're hypotheses about criminals.†   (source)
  • It meant a diagnosis of death by reason of fright, as in the case of Billy Boy Watkins, or it meant feeding M&Ms to Bernie Lynn, or it meant the rigorous verification of hypotheses by means of repeated empirical observation, which was the meaning whenever he engaged in debate with Jim Pederson or Frenchie Tucker.†   (source)
  • They're willing to live inside imagined hypotheses and theories.†   (source)
  • Inductive logic, Freud, experimental psychology, mathematizing hypotheses, scientific study of the Talmud.†   (source)
  • She took his dictation with care, but because of his runaway fervor, in some haste, so it was not until she got down to the job of typing it out for the printer that she began to glimpse seething in that cauldron of historical allusions and dialectical hypotheses and religious imperatives and legal precedents and anthropological propositions the smoky, ominous presence of a single word—repeated several times—which quite baffled and confounded and frightened her, appearing as it did in this otherwise persuasively practical text, this clever polemic which voiced with breezily scurrilous mockery the sly propaganda she had half heard more than once over the Bieganski dinner table.†   (source)
  • BRADY I am not in the least interested in the pagan hypotheses of that book.†   (source)
  • "Well, certainly that is also a conceivable hypothesis," said Holmes, smiling.   (source)
    hypothesis = a seemingly reasonable, but unproven, explanation
  • The Professor's imagination took fire at this hypothesis.   (source)
    hypothesis = a seemingly reasonable, but unproven, idea or explanation
  • My hypothesis is this: that the spout is nothing but mist.   (source)
    hypothesis = a seemingly reasonable, but unproven, idea
  • You say they are marks of finger-nails, and you set up the hypothesis that she destroyed her child.   (source)
  • Let us therefore assume this last hypothesis as the most suitable to our situation, and calculate.   (source)
    hypothesis = a seemingly reasonable, but unproven, idea or explanation
  • "Upon my word, this is a very clever hypothesis," I exclaimed, in spite rather of myself.   (source)
  • "Confusion to all your figures, and all your hypotheses besides," shouted my uncle in a sudden rage.   (source)
    hypotheses = ideas or explanations that are seemingly reasonable, but unproven
  • As my uncle was now taking his stand upon hypotheses, of course, there was nothing to be said.   (source)
  • But this is pure hypothesis.   (source)
    hypothesis = an unproven explanation
  • There was something rather bold in Miss Tulliver's direct gaze, and something undefinably coarse in the style of her beauty, which placed her, in the opinion of all feminine judges, far below her cousin Miss Deane; for the ladies of St. Ogg's had now completely ceded to Lucy their hypothetic claims on the admiration of Mr. Stephen Guest.   (source)
    hypothetic = possibly real, but not known for sure to be real
  • "...perhaps Mr. Snell's bull got out again, as he did before."
    "I wish he mayn't gore anybody then, that's all," said Jane, not altogether despising a hypothesis which covered a few imaginary calamities.   (source)
    hypothesis = a seemingly reasonable, but unproven, explanation
  • "...another man, who may flatter himself that he has a hold on her regard, might succeed in winning that firm place in her love as well as respect which you had let slip. ..."
    ... He had a horrible conviction that behind all this hypothetic statement there was a knowledge of some actual change in Mary's feeling.   (source)
    hypothetic = possible or potential
  • But if such an hypothesis be indeed exceptionable, there were still additional considerations which, though not so strictly according with the wildness of his ruling passion, yet were by no means incapable of swaying him.   (source)
    hypothesis = a seemingly reasonable, but unproven, idea
  • …it has hypothetically occurred to me, I say, that those mystical lung-celled honeycombs there may possibly have some hitherto unknown and unsuspected connexion with the outer air, so as to be susceptible to atmospheric distension and contraction.   (source)
    hypothetically = based on an idea that seems reasonable, but is unproven
  • We were long engaged in discussing, amongst other problems, the hypothesis of the liquid structure of the terrestrial nucleus.   (source)
    hypothesis = a seemingly reasonable, but unproven, idea or explanation
  • So, at last, when I could hold out no longer, I resolved to lay the case before my uncle, as prudently and as cautiously as possible, just under the form of an almost impossible hypothesis.   (source)
  • This hypothesis led me to examine with more attention the appearance of the surface, and I soon arrived at a conclusion as to the nature of the forces which presided at its birth.   (source)
  • "You see, Axel," he added, "the condition of the terrestrial nucleus has given rise to various hypotheses among geologists; there is no proof at all for this internal heat; my opinion is that there is no such thing, it cannot be; besides we shall see for ourselves, and, like Arne Saknussemm, we shall know exactly what to hold as truth concerning this grand question."   (source)
    hypotheses = ideas or explanations that are seemingly reasonable, but unproven
  • We intend to test the hypotheses of two renowned mathematicians in a single experiment.†   (source)
  • Unconsciously, he had named the two hypotheses that he ought to have avoided.†   (source)
  • So he said analysts don't let anyone challenge their hypotheses," I said.†   (source)
  • Without such an experiment, all considerations of this kind remain a game of hypotheses.†   (source)
  • These correlations are clues for cause-and-effect hypotheses.†   (source)
  • The point about mathematizing hypotheses was made by Kant.†   (source)
  • Any schoolboy can do experiments in the physics laboratory to test various scientific hypotheses.†   (source)
  • He then sets up hypotheses for these and tests them.†   (source)
  • It pleased him never to run out of hypotheses.†   (source)
  • The formation of hypotheses is the most mysterious of all the categories of scientific method.†   (source)
  • A lesser mind might then have said, "Well then, man provides the hypotheses."†   (source)
  • For every fact there is an infinity of hypotheses.†   (source)
  • You could have an objective conversation with him, a conversation in which events and hypotheses were followed through to their logical conclusions.†   (source)
  • Having completed her tally, Nina observed a little sadly: "Professor Lisitsky said that these hypotheses have been tested over time...."†   (source)
  • And though the Count's days of romancing were behind him, it goes against the nature of even the well-meaning gentleman to recommend that lovely young ladies leave his company on the basis of hypotheses.†   (source)
  • But there are scholarly hypotheses on the origins of the two groups, and a great deal is known about their evolution, about how the difference between Hutus and Tutsis became lethal in Burundi and Rwanda.†   (source)
  • He said they were happy to earn their fat fees as analysts and refused to let anyone challenge their hypotheses.†   (source)
  • The Freudian approach doesn't really provide a method of accepting or rejecting hypotheses, and that's no way to acquire knowledge.†   (source)
  • 'Gentlemen, psychology may be regarded as a science only to the degree to which its hypotheses are subjected to laboratory testing and to subsequent mathematization.'†   (source)
  • They are interested solely in confirming highly dubious theoretical hypotheses by the logic of analogy and induction, and make no attempt at refutation or inter-sufyective testing.†   (source)
  • When he talked about psychology now, he invariably used the technical language of the experimentalist: variables, constants, manipulation, observation, recording of data, testing hypotheses, and the advantages of attempting to refute hypotheses as against confirming them.†   (source)
  • My father wanted to know what it was the two professors had in common, and I told him What Professor Appleman had said about psychology being a science only to the extent to which its hypotheses can be mathematized.†   (source)
  • Traditional scientific method, unfortunately, has never quite gotten around to say exactly where to pick up more of these hypotheses.†   (source)
  • Phaedrus' break occurred when, as a result of laboratory experience, he became interested in hypotheses as entities in themselves.†   (source)
  • You need some ideas, some hypotheses.†   (source)
  • You think of as many hypotheses as you can, then you design experiments to test them to see which are true and which are false.†   (source)
  • The questions he had asked about infinite hypotheses hadn't been of interest to science because they weren't scientific questions.†   (source)
  • And what seems to be causing the number of hypotheses to grow in recent decades seems to be nothing other than scientific method itself.†   (source)
  • He had noticed again and again in his lab work that what might seem to be the hardest part of scientific work, thinking up the hypotheses, was invariably the easiest.†   (source)
  • He coined a law intended to have the humor of a Parkinson's law that "The number of rational hypotheses that can explain any given phenomenon is infinite.†   (source)
  • Nature provides the hypotheses.†   (source)
  • The same is true of hypotheses.†   (source)
  • If all hypotheses cannot be tested, then the results of any experiment are inconclusive and the entire scientific method falls short of its goal of establishing proven knowledge.†   (source)
  • What you need is an hypothesis for how you're going to get that slotless screw out of there and scientific method doesn't provide any of these hypotheses.†   (source)
  • What shortens the life-span of the existing truth is the volume of hypotheses offered to replace it; the more the hypotheses, the shorter the time span of the truth.†   (source)
  • His judgment that the scientist selects facts, hypotheses and axioms on the basis of harmony, also left the rough serrated edge of a puzzle incomplete.†   (source)
  • From these hypotheses he deduces a series of theorems among which it's impossible to find any contradiction, and he constructs a geometry whose faultless logic is inferior in nothing to that of the Euclidian geometry.†   (source)
  • Through multiplication upon multiplication of facts, information, theories and hypotheses, it is science itself that is leading mankind from single absolute truths to multiple, indeterminate, relative ones.†   (source)
  • If the purpose of scientific method is to select from among a multitude of hypotheses, and if the number of hypotheses grows faster than experimental method can handle, then it is clear that all hypotheses can never be tested.†   (source)
  • The logical statements entered into the notebook are broken down into six categories: (1) statement of the problem, (2) hypotheses as to the cause of the problem, (3) experiments designed to test each hypothesis, (4) predicted results of the experiments, (5) observed results of the experiments and (6) conclusions from the results of the experiments.†   (source)
  • As he was testing hypothesis number one by experimental method a flood of other hypotheses would come to mind, and as he was testing these, some more came to mind, and as he was testing these, still more came to mind until it became painfully evident that as he continued testing hypotheses and eliminating them or confirming them their number did not decrease.†   (source)
  • Which hypotheses?†   (source)
  • Whereas the truths of science are communicable, being demonstrable hypotheses rationally founded on observable facts, ritual, mythology, and metaphysics are but guides to the brink of a transcendent illumination, the final step to which must be taken by each in his own silent experience.†   (source)
  • Again and again I ask impatiently, "Why concern myself with these explanations and hypotheses?"†   (source)
  • As for me, I was no longer content with the hypotheses that satisfied Conseil.†   (source)
  • The existence of this shore seemed to bear out Commander Maury's hypotheses.†   (source)
  • Not five times in five years do I have students who understand craftsmanship and precision and maybe some big imagination in hypotheses.†   (source)
  • He hurled out hypotheses like sparks.†   (source)
▲ show less (of above)

hypothesis as in:  assume as a working hypothesis

show 10 more with this conextual meaning
  • Instead of talking about her specific situation, I asked her to consider a hypothetical situation with similar circumstances. It helped her to keep emotions under control as she thought about everyone's point-of-view.
    hypothetical = of something that may or may not be true, but is temporarily treated as true to advance a discussion or to further investigation
  • Hypothetically speaking, if the company did downsize and you lost your job, what would you do?
    hypothetically = based on something that is temporarily treated as true to advance a discussion or to further investigation
  • Hypothetically speaking, if the stock market is efficient, we would expect indexed mutual funds to perform as well as managed mutual funds, but with less overhead.
  • I'd been speaking hypothetically about moving to New York a year early.   (source)
  • "All the park fences carry ten thousand volts. The animals quickly learn not to go near them."
    "But if one did get out?" Gennaro said.
    Arnold snorted, and stubbed out his cigarette.
    "Just hypothetically," Gennaro said. "Supposing it happened?"   (source)
  • We should call and be, like, hypothetically, if we knew where Pickett was the night he disappeared, how much would that be worth?   (source)
    hypothetically = temporarily treating something as true to advance a discussion
  • There's an enormous difference between hypothetically discussing an alternate history of Christ, and … presenting to the world thousands of ancient documents as scientific evidence that the New Testament is false testimony.   (source)
  • And if something is nearby you can find it by moving in a spiral, walking clockwise and taking every right turn until you come back to a road you've already walked on, then taking the next left, then taking every right turn and so on, like this (but this is a hypothetical diagram, too, and not a map of Swindon).   (source)
    hypothetical = something temporarily treated as true to advance a discussion or to further investigation
  • "Let's say I was smoking pot," Josie said.
    Her mother froze. "Is there something you want to tell me, Josie?"
    "God, Mom, I'm not doing it. This is hypothetical."   (source)
  • Hypothetical scenarios were a favourite thing of Crake's.   (source)
    hypothetical = temporarily treating something as true to advance discussion
▲ show less (of above)
show 68 more with this conextual meaning
  • At one point I asked Langan, hypothetically, whether he would take a job at Harvard University were it offered to him.   (source)
    hypothetically = based on something that is temporarily treated as true to advance a discussion or to further investigation
  • "Let's say, for example, I am trying to teach you how not to hide inside of lies, hypothetically of course," she said with a wink.   (source)
    hypothetically = based on something that is only temporarily treated as true in order to advance a discussion
  • Let's suppose that Harriet had discovered that someone had embezzled money from the company—hypothetically, of course.   (source)
    hypothetically = based on something that is temporarily treated as true to advance a discussion or to further investigation
  • Now she had a working hypothesis.   (source)
    hypothesis = something that may or may not be true, but is temporarily treated as true to advance a discussion or to further investigation
  • "Miss Taggart," he asked sadly and cautiously, "would you say that if--this is just a hypothetical question--if the equipment now in use on the Rio Norte Line were made available, it would fill the needs of our transcontinental main-line traffic?"   (source)
    hypothetical = based on something temporarily treated as true to advance a discussion or to further investigation
  • This isn't just hypothetical. It's actually happened before that people got caught.   (source)
    hypothetical = something that has not happened, but could reasonably be expected to happen and is treated as though it did to advance conversation
  • Actually, there are several options for your hypothetical future recovery scenario, should we proceed any further.   (source)
    hypothetical = of something temporarily treated as true to advance a discussion or to further investigation
  • For real resignation, at the same moment, to a dozen different and hypothetical fates, is almost impossible, and the Enemy does not greatly assist those who are trying to attain it: resignation to present and actual suffering, even where that suffering consists of fear, is far easier and is usually helped by this direct action.   (source)
    hypothetical = something temporarily treated as true
  • Supposing that anything happened to our young friend here—you will forgive the unpleasant hypothesis!   (source)
    hypothesis = something that may or may not happen, but is temporarily treated as though it will happen to investigate possible outcomes
  • A little later on in the dinner, Mr. Wopsle reviewed the sermon with some severity, and intimated—in the usual hypothetical case of the Church being "thrown open"—what kind of sermon he would have given them.   (source)
    hypothetical = something temporarily treated as true to advance a discussion or to further investigation
  • "This is a purely hypothetical question," I said.†   (source)
  • Hypothetically.†   (source)
  • Hypothetical questions almost always had as much luck as my time-based queries.†   (source)
  • Other people such as, hypothetically speaking, Sunday diners at a sidewalk café in Boca Raton, Florida?†   (source)
  • "We were speaking of a hypothetical case," I reminded him frostily.†   (source)
  • "I don't trouble myself with hypotheticals," answered Lieutenant Issaaia.†   (source)
  • The Captain said that it was possible, but only hypothetically.†   (source)
  • And if, hypothetically speaking, I were to ask you, 'Did you take my sister to that hotel and have sex with her?'†   (source)
  • During the morning's preparations and bus trip to D.C, Cedric's mind locks onto strategic either-ors, multiple-choice answers to hypothetical questions and considerations about how much he'll be able to lie.†   (source)
  • I began to pose a hypothetical question, which I thought expressed great insight into his peripatetic life.†   (source)
  • Hypothetically speaking, what was stopping me from picking the lock to ....Carnegie Hall?†   (source)
  • "My concern," Raleigh said, "is that I don't want the department intruding on the grief of the families with a lot of hypotheticals until we have more to go on.†   (source)
  • "A hypothetical case," Eve began and waited for Mira's nod.†   (source)
  • "Hypothetical question," Mike had said.†   (source)
  • He had been approached in panic by someone not given to panic, and asked 'hypothetical' questions pertaining to a possibly deranged deep-cover agent in a potentially explosive situation.†   (source)
  • —and invariably these arguments revolved around this hypothetical question: On what side would an American Jew fight should America ever declare war against a Jewish state?†   (source)
  • Mama asked, because nine times out of ten he did have an answer for what sounded like hypothetical questions.†   (source)
  • BRADY Your Honor, my worthy opponent from Chicago is cluttering the issue with hypothetical questions— DRUMMOND (Wheeling) I'm doing your job, Colonel.†   (source)
  • Hypothetical question: If Jocko visited Center, would you still have the same feeling?†   (source)
  • So let me ask you a hypothetical question.   (source)
    hypothetical = based on something temporarily treated as true to advance a discussion or to further investigation
  • On the second to last evening, Crake said, "Let me walk you through a hypothetical scenario."   (source)
    hypothetical = of something temporarily treated as true to advance a discussion or to further investigation
  • "Objection," said Jordan McAfee. "That's a hypothetical question."   (source)
    hypothetical = based on assumptions rather than facts
  • Nothing hypothetical here: that was what HelthWyzer actually did.   (source)
    hypothetical = of something temporarily treated as true to advance a discussion or to further investigation
  • He was thinking about his hypothetical brother, the one that wasn't born yet.   (source)
  • Let's take it as a working hypothesis that Bjurman raped her and she somehow took her revenge.   (source)
    hypothesis = something that may or may not be true, but is temporarily treated as true to advance a discussion or to further investigation
  • Personal Reactions to Options for My Hypothetical Future Recovery Scenario (Abridged):   (source)
    hypothetical = of something temporarily treated as true to advance a discussion or to further investigation
  • Options for My Hypothetical Future Recovery Scenario (Abridged):   (source)
  • And so …. hypothetically, if these two people liked each other, what would it take to get the stupid guy to kiss the girl, huh?   (source)
    hypothetically = based on something that is temporarily treated as true to advance a discussion or to further investigation
  • "Getting you a date to prom is so hard that the hypothetical idea itself is actually used to cut diamonds," I added.   (source)
    hypothetical = something temporarily treated as true to advance a discussion or to further investigation
  • The linguists Ute Fischer and Judith Orasanu once gave the following hypothetical scenario to a group of captains and first officers and asked them how they would respond: ...   (source)
  • Is there any risk, hypothetically speaking, that Martin might create problems for Millennium if I don't put a stop to the investigation of Harriet's disappearance?   (source)
    hypothetically = based on something that is temporarily treated as true to advance a discussion or to further investigation
  • So, hypothetically speaking, if Peter's captor believed this was the Masonic Pyramid, he would believe it contained powerful information.   (source)
  • I had a highly hypothetical conversation with the tip line, and they said that the reward is coming from the company, not the police, so it's up to the company to decide what is relevant, and that the reward would only be given out after they found Pickett.   (source)
    hypothetical = based on something temporarily treated as true to advance a discussion or to further investigation
  • "So let's take a hypothetical," Katherine said, discarding the sand grain. "What if I told you that a thought …. any tiny idea that forms in your mind …. actually has mass?"   (source)
    hypothetical = something temporarily treated as true to advance a discussion or to further investigation
  • I didn't reply, but I couldn't stop thinking about Daisy, about Ayala, and most of all about the bugs inside and outside of me, and I knew I was being selfish by even making a big deal out of it, making other people's real C. diff infections about my hypothetical one.   (source)
    hypothetical = supposed
  • What if I told you that a thought is an actual thing, a measurable entity, with a measurable mass? A minuscule mass, of course, but mass nonetheless. What are the implications? Hypothetically speaking?   (source)
    hypothetically = based on something that is temporarily treated as true to advance a discussion or to further investigation
  • Then they'd load this hypothetical wonderkid up with their bloated expectations until the poor tyke burst under the strain.   (source)
    hypothetical = of something temporarily treated as true to advance a discussion or to further investigation
  • Well, we will take it as a working hypothesis for want of a better.   (source)
    hypothesis = something that may or may not be true, but is temporarily treated as true to advance a discussion or to further investigation
  • No, sir, I shall approach this case from the point of view that what this young man says is true, and we shall see whither that hypothesis will lead us.   (source)
  • And if we take this as a working hypothesis we have a fresh basis from which to start our construction of this unknown visitor.   (source)
  • His extreme love of solitude in England suggests the idea that he was in fear of someone or something, so we may assume as a working hypothesis that it was fear of someone or something which drove him from America.   (source)
  • Take, for instance, the hypothetical case of a man who comes into the ER complaining of intermittent left-side chest pain that occasionally comes when he walks up the stairs and that lasts from five minutes to three hours.†   (source)
  • Because if that were true, hypothetically speaking, and if word got out, the giants would invade Midgard immediately!†   (source)
  • Hypothetically speaking.†   (source)
  • Hypothetically speaking.†   (source)
  • "Jack," I said, "hypothetically speaking, if I told these giantesses how we killed their sister, would that break the rules of guest etiquette?"†   (source)
  • Hypothetically speaking.†   (source)
  • Hypothetically speaking.†   (source)
  • But it's a hypothetical question.†   (source)
  • "Just one exception," he corrected, "hypothetically."†   (source)
  • What you're giving me back is a set of hypotheticals.†   (source)
  • As you say, all I have is a bunch of hypotheticals.†   (source)
  • "Hypothetically?" he asked.†   (source)
  • Hypothetically.†   (source)
  • I do not dispute your hypothetical case.†   (source)
  • That was a hypothetical case, arising out of Sir Leicester's unconsciously carrying the matter with so high a hand.†   (source)
  • I answered with the utmost composure that I hadn't egged him on, that I simply stated the general proposition, had spoken hypothetically.†   (source)
  • …when proposing this problem for solution, he had conjectured as a working hypothesis which could not be proved impossible that a more adaptable and differently anatomically constructed race of beings might subsist otherwise under Martian…   (source)
▲ show less (of above)

show 10 more examples with any meaning
  • In the shooter hypothesis, a good marksman shoots at a target, creating a hole every ten centimeters.†   (source)
  • If she hadn't witnessed a phenomenon with her own eyes, then as far as she was concerned it was a hypothesis.†   (source)
  • "Oh, that's right," said Joe, "we were speaking hypothetically, weren't we?†   (source)
  • So the D-6 in use on the deceased's boat could have— hypothetically, since it was identical—made a perfect spare for the defendant's batteries?†   (source)
  • But that was hypothetical.†   (source)
  • In time "Hillari's Hypothesis" (so called by Kevin) about Stargirl's origins gave way to other theories.†   (source)
  • "Of course," he muttered, "this is all hypothetical, what we're discussing, isn't it?†   (source)
  • "FOR THE SAKE OF AVOIDING A HYPOTHETICAL LAWSUIT," wrote Owen Meany, "THE HEADMASTER HAS CHANGED A DEMOCRACY TO AN OLIGARCHY—HE HAS TAKEN THE FUTURE OF A BOY IN TROUBLE OUT OF THE HANDS OF MANY AND PLACED THE FATE OF THAT BOY INTO THE HANDS OF A FEW AND LET US EXAMINE THESE FEW.†   (source)
  • He started talking a lot about his hypothetical new bird book, and whenever the subject came up I did my best to encourage him and sound interested.†   (source)
  • We hoped to be able to trace and locate the descendants of the hypothetical occupants, whom we hoped might lead us to other material: diaries, perhaps, or even family anecdotes passed down through the generations.†   (source)
▲ show less (of above)
show 190 more examples with any meaning
  • That's just a hypothetical reason.†   (source)
  • , "Hypothetically," he said.†   (source)
  • One hypothesis is that the Tombs relate to some future war.†   (source)
  • I'm saying that, hypothetically, I wouldn't do it.†   (source)
  • Let's say, hypothetically of course, that...someone...could know what people are thinking, read minds, you know — with a few exceptions.†   (source)
  • What you've got in this hypothetical tale is a fairly dramatic setup that's already fraught with possibility.†   (source)
  • It staggers both imagination and belief to advance the hypothesis that Mrs. Margaret White did not know she was pregnant, or even understand what the word entails, and recent scholars such as J. W. Bankson and George Fielding have made a more reasonable case for the hypothesis that the concept, linked irrevocably in her mind with the "sin" of intercourse, had been blocked entirely from her mind.†   (source)
  • I think they just wanted me to play the position as a kind of final experiment to verify their hypothesis" (Audick might not have been big or fast, but he was charming).†   (source)
  • There are, however, some interesting details which support this hypothesis.†   (source)
  • This was the backbone of his hypothesis that the virus was able to transmute itself from a biologically transmitted string of DNA into a set of behaviors.†   (source)
  • It's what she considers an ideal Friday, a hypothetical Friday in which everything she wants to happen happens.†   (source)
  • She dared to tell herself that perhaps she would have been happier with him, alone with him in that house she had restored for him with as much love as he had felt when he restored his house for her, and that simple hypothesis dismayed her because it permitted her to realize the extreme of unhappiness she had reached.†   (source)
  • Mortality had remained a conveniently hypothetical concept, an idea to ponder in the abstract.†   (source)
  • We trace this hypothetical line of vision with great care.†   (source)
  • The incubation period of hepatitis B fit Shiva's hypothesis: it was six weeks from her visit to my falling ill.†   (source)
  • Martin and Janice aren't hypothetical examples dreamed up by some marketing department.†   (source)
  • They were industrious, orderly, and energetic, hoping to prove beyond a doubt De Gobineau's hypothesis that "all civilizations derive from the white race, that none can exist without its help, and that a society is great and brilliant only so far as it preserves the blood of the noble group that created it.†   (source)
  • I was merely being hypothetical.†   (source)
  • You and I both know how hypothetical this solution is.†   (source)
  • Regardless of whether the data were faked, Lott's admittedly intriguing hypothesis doesn't seem to be true.†   (source)
  • Figuring out how they're connected may take a while, but let's just go with the hypothesis that they are, and say, what if.†   (source)
  • You have built a very strong hypothesis indeed, but I'm sorry to say that you have not proved the full theory.†   (source)
  • When you are finished getting your group therapy sessions, safe-sex lectures, and 12-step sermons, you may be able to test the hypothesis.†   (source)
  • I have a hypothetical for you.†   (source)
  • Blomkvist's hypothesis is that his friends were killed because of the book that Svensson was writing.†   (source)
  • He did not like that his Mystics instructor was sharing her hypothesis that Max might be Cuchulain reborn.†   (source)
  • Some of you have probably jumped ahead and are already at the place where you realize this happened to us, and I'm not just rattling on hypothetically, so good on ya!†   (source)
  • I believe, sir, that we have had this conversation, here in this N cry Hall, albeit then in a hypothetical context.†   (source)
  • She was not expected to regain full consciousness until eight A.M. My hypothesis would be that, as we don't fully understand the properties of Immortality as yet, what was left in her system counteracted the sedative.†   (source)
  • I assure you, not a single piece of hypothetical data has been used for this 'cartoon,' as you call it.†   (source)
  • Mu says the answer is beyond the hypothesis.†   (source)
  • He was leafing through the rest of the file, looking for the part that interested him—the Odd Man Hypothesis—when he came upon a page that was rather unusual.†   (source)
  • It was only a theory, hypothetically convincing, but still just a theory, the basis for a sound strategy.†   (source)
  • If is such; was never more than hypothesis.†   (source)
  • First of all, the professorship is purely hypothetical.†   (source)
  • Miss Taggart, I had been working on it for months, on that one particular hypothesis, and the more I worked, the more hopeless it seemed to become.†   (source)
  • What's more, by your own account, it's likely the construction of this hypothetical tunnel was never completed in the first place.†   (source)
  • Then I'd say whatever you're involved in is way beyond a hypothetical.†   (source)
  • All evening I've been locked inside myself, playing these hypothetical games of confidence and chance, thinking of the firebomb and why it happened and who could have left the scene with a light burning in his hand.†   (source)
  • She looked like a tourist who'd asked for directions to a place she thought was simple enough to get to only to hear a series of hypothetical turns, alleys, one-way streets.†   (source)
  • It should be noted that Neff's hypothesis and his entire body of work have been repudiated and dismissed by the vast majority of trained historians and assassination scholars.†   (source)
  • And it furnishes a rule for interpreting the Constitution—within the Constitution—that justifies my position and refutes every hypothesis to the contrary.†   (source)
  • She offered hypothetical situations that might come to pass and asked how they'd be handled by the staff and director; she asked how many times Gabby would be turned in the course of a day, so as to prevent bedsores.†   (source)
  • What we are attempting is a hypothesis in which I answer for him, while you ask me questions.†   (source)
  • But what I mean is this: suppose you had done that, suppose it were true—I am taking an example, you understand, a hypothesis, would you kill a man, an innocent man—†   (source)
  • She knew it was the rough draft of The Profession v. Perry Mason, A Not-so-hypothetical Indictment, and had been in progress for as long as the TV show had been on the air.†   (source)
  • By noon, I had a bad case of eyestrain and a worse one of cramps, and I had almost concluded that my hypothesis of the previous day was grievously at fault and that the "den" was just a fortuitous hole in the sand.†   (source)
  • You cannot trick me into applying my principles to a hypothetical situation which will only work out the way that you want it to.†   (source)
  • A man who, by his very diligence, has begun to set people around him to talking and fretting against him, people who might, potentially ...Hypothetical, of course.†   (source)
  • The twin breathing orifices on either cheek-if those fluted, basalt curves could be called cheeks-emitted the faintest of whistles as Karellen's hypothetical lungs laboured in the thin air of Earth.†   (source)
  • "I guess that makes everything hypothetical," he said.†   (source)
  • They were written in an easy conversational style but were anything but works of popularization, since they advanced opinions that were controversial, hypothetical, and untested, though always lively and original.†   (source)
  • This second day proved a hypothesis formulated quickly and haphazardly on the first day.†   (source)
  • LOGICIAN: It's stated in the hypothesis.†   (source)
  • Hypothetically, if you were the bride, which you won't be.†   (source)
  • I want to help you, I do, but—and of course I'm speaking hypothetically, right?†   (source)
  • Theories Lagos tried to apply to his virus hypothesis.†   (source)
  • And she might hypothetically strangle you—I mean me.†   (source)
  • The best way to understand the Tipping Point is to imagine a hypothetical outbreak of the flu.†   (source)
  • If it had been found, they would have checked everyone in his hypothetical circle, wouldn't they?†   (source)
  • All these hypothetical examples aren't getting us anywhere.†   (source)
  • This hypothetical computer is soon going to send you a hypothetical email.†   (source)
  • We have the beginnings of a hypothesis, but you need to find your lens maker.†   (source)
  • My hypothesis, madam, is that Marion-bhaiya started isoniazid on his own.†   (source)
  • Oh well, this is purely hypothetical at this point, anyway.†   (source)
  • Well, now the hypothesis is proven, and I mean to do as I said I would.†   (source)
  • "A test programming by trial hypothesis," he agreed.†   (source)
  • "But, hypothetically," I said, "I could go back to earth, Midgard, whatever—"†   (source)
  • He is testing a hypothesis by putting the question to nature.†   (source)
  • Single Man Hypothesis (Odd Man Hypothesis), page 255.†   (source)
  • No, but let's assume, hypothetically, that the government might want to do so.†   (source)
  • He has proved that his hypothesis is correct.†   (source)
  • SUMMARY OF ODD MAN HYPOTHESIS: First tested as null hypothesis by Wildfire advisory committee.†   (source)
  • "I was reading," Hall said, "that this device is somehow connected with the Odd Man Hypothesis."†   (source)
  • Until it's tested the hypothesis isn't truth.†   (source)
  • Yes or no confirms or denies a hypothesis.†   (source)
  • The hypothetical student, still a mule, would drift around for a while.†   (source)
  • The purpose of scientific method is to select a single truth from among many hypothetical truths.†   (source)
  • "Hypothetical," she said, "unless you know something I don't.†   (source)
  • "Or not with a capital N." Hypothetical   (source)
  • If the hypothetical man was friendly, and if she was anxious to get her son home, she might have accepted.†   (source)
  • The hypothetical old prude might have run screaming from the sight of Misery, but her screams would have been caused by terror and revulsion rather then outraged propriety.†   (source)
  • The farmer hypothesis, on the other hand, has the flavor of a horror story: Every morning on a turkey farm, the farmer comes to feed the turkeys.†   (source)
  • Hypothetically   (source)
  • But Florentino Ariza pursued the discussion to its end, and only then did he ask the question that the Captain thought was the prelude to a solution: "And speaking hypothetically," he said, "would it be possible to make a trip without stopping, without cargo or passengers, without coming into any port, without anything?"†   (source)
  • If overt TK ability occurs as a part of puberty, and if this hypothetical TK test is performed on children entering the first grade, we shall certainly be forewarned.†   (source)
  • OKAY, SO HERE'S THE DEAL: let's say, purely hypothetically, you're reading a book about an average sixteen-year-old kid in the summer of 1968.†   (source)
  • But this could not explain the clear distension of the lungs, which had to have been caused by the pressure of the sea, and so he revised his initial hypothesis and entered in his final report that the salt water swallowed by Alec Vilderling had been absorbed into his bloodstream while he yet lived.†   (source)
  • But there was a more direct way to prove the hypothesis: Red Coast itself could transmit radio waves directly at the sun at a power level exceeding the threshold value.†   (source)
  • But let's suppose, for purposes of argument, that the blood on the fishing gaff was in fact Carl Heine's, even though it might have come from hundreds of other men—let's just suppose that hypothetically for a moment.†   (source)
  • According to your hypothesis, there should be another observable situation: The sun must get smaller than it usually appears but bigger than a flying star, and gradually shrink into a flying star as it moves farther away.†   (source)
  • She was the first to experimentally disprove the hypothetical "law of conservation of parity" and thereby lend support to the work of theoretical physicists Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen-Ning Yang.†   (source)
  • I simply cannot redirect all of Rowan's best minds to help you research your hypothesis at the expense of everything else they're doing.†   (source)
  • Thor regaled me with his theories about a hypothetical death match between Daryl from The Walking Dead and Mike from Breaking Bad.†   (source)
  • "It's all hypothetical," Nyström said.†   (source)
  • To examine the hypothesis that he did love me, while staying objective, clinical, so I wouldn't fall into the trap of hoping.†   (source)
  • And all men use them, because they are true of being qua being...For a principle which every one must have who understands anything that is, is not a hypothesis...Evidently then such a principle is the most certain of all; which principle this is, let us proceed to say.†   (source)
  • The hypothesis that all three murders were committed by one mentally ill woman no longer seemed valid.†   (source)
  • Hypothetical.†   (source)
  • Camila's business plan for a Victoria's Secret competitor, for example, was entertaining but highly hypothetical and totally unrelated to what she might be doing when she got out of this human warehouse in five years.†   (source)
  • ...On the basis of Mo's on-the-spot evaluation of that hypothetical profile-which he hours later suspected was no more hypothetical than Campbell's soup-an innocent amnesiac was nearly blown away in a government ambush on New York's Seventy-first Street.†   (source)
  • A hypothesis.†   (source)
  • "Hypothetically, yes," T.J. said.†   (source)
  • What hypothesis?†   (source)
  • However, I have dismissed this hypothesis because I don't believe that people who have really gone mad think they have gone mad, so wondering if you have gone mad means that you haven't.†   (source)
  • Though men had known germs caused disease since Henle's hypothesis of 1840, by the middle of the twentieth century there was still nothing known about why or how bacteria did their damage.†   (source)
  • There had been great pressure from Defense and the AEC to accept Hall, since those groups believed in the Odd Man Hypothesis; in the end, Stone and the others had given in.†   (source)
  • Name Index of Effectiveness Burton .543 Leavitt .601 Kirke .614 Stone .687 Results of special testing confirm the Odd Man Hypothesis, that an unmarried male should carry out command decisions involving thermonuclear or chem-biol destruct contexts.†   (source)
  • THIS IS PAGE 255 OF 274 PAGES BY THE AUTHORITY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE THIS PAGE FROM A HIGH-SECURITY FILE HAS BEEN DELETED THE PAGE IS NUMBER: two hundred fiftv-five/255 THE FILE IS CODED: Wildfire THE SUBJECT MATTER DELETED IS: Odd Man Hypothesis PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS CONSTITUTES A LEGAL DELETION FROM THE FILE WHICH NEED NOT BE REPORTED BY THE READER.†   (source)
  • Skill at this point consists of using experiments that test only the hypothesis in question, nothing less, nothing more.†   (source)
  • Even when his experimental work seemed dead-end in every conceivable way, he knew that if he just sat down and muddled about it long enough, sure enough, another hypothesis would come along.†   (source)
  • An experiment is a failure only when it also fails adequately to test the hypothesis in question, when the data it produces don't prove anything one way or another.†   (source)
  • So that hypothesis was weak too.†   (source)
  • Then, however, he noticed that some of the articles were written for audiences that couldn't possibly have this background, and this hypothesis was weakened.†   (source)
  • What you should state is "Solve Problem: What is wrong with cycle?" and then state as the first entry of Part Two: "Hypothesis Number One: The trouble is in the electrical system."†   (source)
  • What you need is an hypothesis for how you're going to get that slotless screw out of there and scientific method doesn't provide any of these hypotheses.†   (source)
  • His second hypothesis was that the Chairman was a "technician," a phrase he used for a writer so deeply involved in his field that he'd lost the ability to communicate with people outside.†   (source)
  • If Phaedrus had entered science for ambitious or utilitarian purposes it might never have occurred to him to ask questions about the nature of a scientific hypothesis as an entity in itself.†   (source)
  • One can see how both the informal and formal processes of hypothesis, experiment, conclusion, century after century, repeated with new material, have built up the hierarchies of thought which have eliminated most of the enemies of primitive man.†   (source)
  • As he was testing hypothesis number one by experimental method a flood of other hypotheses would come to mind, and as he was testing these, some more came to mind, and as he was testing these, still more came to mind until it became painfully evident that as he continued testing hypotheses and eliminating them or confirming them their number did not decrease.†   (source)
  • The logical statements entered into the notebook are broken down into six categories: (1) statement of the problem, (2) hypotheses as to the cause of the problem, (3) experiments designed to test each hypothesis, (4) predicted results of the experiments, (5) observed results of the experiments and (6) conclusions from the results of the experiments.†   (source)
  • Hume's motorcycle, the one that makes no sense at all, will occur if our previous hypothetical bed patient, the one who has no senses at all, is suddenly, for one second only, exposed to the sense data of a motorcycle, then deprived of his senses again.†   (source)
  • In the hypothesis.†   (source)
  • A reasonable hypothesis, at least.†   (source)
  • His mind turned to its accustomed round of thoughts-he had touched on them indirectly in many medical works-concerning will and purposefulness as superior forms of adaptation; mimicry and protective coloring; the survival of the fittest; and the hypothesis that the path of natural selection is the very path leading to the formation and emergence of consciousness.†   (source)
  • In the hypothetical usual case he feels a certain trifling longing for experience with women he is not married to—because a wife is a great responsibility, and that very sense of liberation, escape from parents, norms, old chains, which made sex an adventure when he married his wife, has become for him now a jailhouse.†   (source)
  • All the talk about dolphins, all my reading, speculating, including a long philosophical dissertation on their hypothetical dreamsongs as a religio-diagogical form of Indus, for what?†   (source)
  • Hypothesis after hypothesis has been tried, and still we can't find out.†   (source)
  • It's supposed to be easier to suffer for hypothetical people too, for Hecubas.†   (source)
  • Mr. Mallory's human figures would have been very fine were it not for the hypothesis that God created the world and the human form.†   (source)
  • [1] An hypothesis both hateful and odd†   (source)
  • Left: Repin, Cossacks; Right: Piacsso,Woman with a Fan Let us see, for example, what happens when an ignorant Russian peasant such as Macdonald mentions stands with hypothetical freedom of choice before two paintings, one by Picasso, the other by Repin.†   (source)
  • He took no notice of her and went steadily on: "Such a hypothesis had the merit of explaining one fact-the discrepancy between the personality of Alexander Bonaparte Cust (who could never have made the click with any girl) and the personality of Betty Barnard's murderer.†   (source)
  • validity of the rival claims of the pretenders to many thrones; he was not a man of religious habit, but he knew more than most Catholics about their Church; he had friends in the Vatican and could talk at length of policy and appointments, saying which contemporary ecclesiastics were in good favor, which in bad, what recent theological hypothesis was suspect, and how this or that Jesuit or Dominican had skated on thin ice or sailed near the wind in his Lenten discourses; he had everything except the Faith, and later liked to attend benediction in the chapel of Brideshead and see the ladies of the family with their necks arched in devotion under their black lace mantillas; he love†   (source)
  • To be asked to imagine herself in hypothetical situations bored her very much, but she accepted it as a disagreeable part of a duty.†   (source)
  • Simple conjunctions and prepositions are replaced by such phrases as WITH RESPECT TO, HAVING REGARD TO, THE FACT THAT, BY DINT OF, IN VIEW OF, IN THE INTERESTS OF, ON THE HYPOTHESIS THAT; and the ends of sentences are saved from anti-climax by such resounding commonplaces as GREATLY TO BE DESIRED, CANNOT BE LEFT OUT OF ACCOUNT, A DEVELOPMENT TO BE EXPECTED IN THE NEAR FUTURE, DESERVING OF SERIOUS CONSIDERATION, BROUGHT TO A SATISFACTORY CONCLUSION, and so on and so forth.†   (source)
  • Was some scientific hypothesis, well on its way to validation and ultimate public use, discarded because of unexpected findings on that cold winter day?†   (source)
  • During our talk I made a hypothetical statement that summed up my attitude toward God and the suffering in the world, a statement that stemmed from my knowledge of life as I had lived, seen, felt, and suffered it in terms of dread, fear, hunger, terror, and loneliness.†   (source)
  • "It is only a hypothesis so far," Hans Castorp said languidly.†   (source)
  • It strikes me occasionally, just as a scientific hypothesis,—that perhaps it is the paper!†   (source)
  • Upon either hypothesis—insolence or despair—I felt I could be of no use to him.†   (source)
  • A highly fertile hypothesis," the director rejoined.†   (source)
  • I felt pretty sure now that my second hypothesis was all wrong.†   (source)
  • Not that she would have listened to any such hypothesis.†   (source)
  • But to my mind, this hypothesis explained only one side of Captain Nemo.†   (source)
  • This is only hypothesis, I repeat; I never for one instant doubt of his innocence.†   (source)
  • "I really can't argue with you on the hypothesis of your defying me," he said.†   (source)
  • If so, I decline to be witness at the trial ......What was the last hypothetical devil mentioned?'†   (source)
  • The Jehovah hypothesis tires me, Bishop.†   (source)
  • This hypothetical optimism gave the poor girl a pang.†   (source)
  • Conseil had coolly reasoned out this hypothesis and laid his plans accordingly.†   (source)
  • This idea is le bien public, the hypothetical welfare of other people.†   (source)
  • Then their eyes met, and they shook hands like cronies in a tavern, and Jude saw the absurdity of quarrelling on such a hypothetical subject, and she the silliness of crying about what was written in an old book like the Bible.†   (source)
  • My museum hypothesis was confirmed.†   (source)
  • Swann made Remi drive him to such restaurants as were still open; it was the sole hypothesis, now, of that happiness which he had contemplated so calmly; he no longer concealed his agitation, the price he set upon their meeting, and promised, in case of success, to reward his coachman, as though, by inspiring in him a will to triumph which would reinforce his own, he could bring it to pass, by a miracle, that Odette—assuming that she had long since gone home to bed,—might yet be found seated in some restaurant on the boulevards.†   (source)
  • Of course the dilemma was purely hypothetical; since he wasn't a blackguard Polish nobleman, it was absurd to speculate what his wife's rights would be if he WERE.†   (source)
  • He was roused by a suspicion that the Hunziker vaccine had insufficient living organisms, and he went yelping on the trail of his hypothesis.†   (source)
  • I had to carry in my mind, as Mr. Keith says in his report, the lettering of the figures, the hypothesis and conclusion, the construction and the process of the proof.†   (source)
  • One is this hypothesis: that every physical quality admired by men in women is in direct connexion with the manifold functions of women for the propagation of the species.†   (source)
  • Even should we assume the hypothesis that at the first touch of the halyards the action of Budd's heart, intensified by extraordinary emotion at its climax, abruptly stopt—much like a watch when in carelessly winding it up you strain at the finish, thus snapping the chain—even under that hypothesis, how account for the phenomenon that followed?†   (source)
  • Mrs. Grose looked straight out of the window, but I felt that, hypothetically, I had a right to know what young persons engaged for Bly were expected to do.†   (source)
  • —This hypothesis, Stephen began.†   (source)
  • —This hypothesis, Stephen repeated, is the other way out: that, though the same object may not seem beautiful to all people, all people who admire a beautiful object find in it certain relations which satisfy and coincide with the stages themselves of all esthetic apprehension.†   (source)
  • An alluring hypothesis.†   (source)
  • A provable hypothesis.†   (source)
  • The expression on Hans Castorp's face was, rather, more a sort of ironic acknowledgment—either of the brilliant conclusions reached or of the new worthy status hypothetically conferred upon him by the director.†   (source)
  • He would live there in the world of the flatlands, among people who had not the vaguest about how one had to live, about thermometers, about the art of wrapping oneself, about fur-lined sleeping bags, about three promenades a day, about—it was difficult to say, difficult to enumerate all the things people down there did not know about; but the notion that Joachim, after having spent more than a year and a half up here, would now be living among such ignorant people, that notion, which applied only to Joachim—and merely from a great distance and only quite hypothetically to himself—so confused Hans Castorp that he closed his eyes and dismissed it with a gesture of his hand.†   (source)
  • With the ongoing series of lectures as a basis, the conversation could then have moved from love as a force conducive to illness, to the nonphysical nature of its indications, to "old" and "new" areas, to soluble toxins and love potions, to light piercing the dark subconscious, to the blessings of psychoanalysis and the transference of symptoms—but then what do we know, since for us this is all merely guesswork, a hypothetical answer to the question about the subject of the chats between Dr. Krokowski and young Hans Castorp.†   (source)
  • The theory that this connection is based on the transference of the collective will of a people to certain historical personages is an hypothesis unconfirmed by the experience of history.†   (source)
  • He really believed in the spiritual advantages, and meant that his life henceforth should be the more devoted because of those later sins which he represented to himself as hypothetic, praying hypothetically for their pardon:—"if I have herein transgressed."†   (source)
  • Incidentally the murder of Lizaveta served indeed to confirm the last hypothesis: a man commits two murders and forgets that the door is open!†   (source)
  • For, having satisfied himself that Frank Cheeryble could have no knowledge of, or acquaintance with, the mysterious young lady, it began to occur to him that even he himself might never see her again; upon which hypothesis he built up a very ingenious succession of tormenting ideas which answered his purpose even better than the vision of Mr Frank Cheeryble, and tantalised and worried him, waking and sleeping.†   (source)
  • He was a contemplative, rather stout gentleman, of excellent digestion; of quiet perceptions, undiseased by hypothesis; happy in his inability to know the causes of things, preferring the things themselves.†   (source)
  • In spite of this invidious hypothesis, which must be taken for nothing more than an example of the capricious play of "American humor," Newman did his best to maintain an easy and friendly style of communication with M. de Bellegarde.†   (source)
  • Now, too, the policeman begins to push at doors; to try fastenings; to be suspicious of bundles; and to administer his beat, on the hypothesis that every one is either robbing or being robbed.†   (source)
  • I hate an illconducted sick-room; and you will be so good as to nurse me on the hypothesis that I shall get well.†   (source)
  • Neither did those who lived three hundred years ago, when America was first discovered, leave any accounts from which even an hypothesis could be formed.†   (source)
  • And, without listening to the chemist, who was still venturing the hypothesis, "It is perhaps a salutary paroxysm," Canivet was about to administer some theriac, when they heard the cracking of a whip; all the windows rattled, and a post-chaise drawn by three horses abreast, up to their ears in mud, drove at a gallop round the corner of the market.†   (source)
  • And on that fact and that basis he began to construct a fantastic edifice of hypothesis, that card-castle of philosophers; then, suddenly returning once more to reality, "Come!†   (source)
  • But no; Tom had never heard that these measures would brighten the understanding, or strengthen the verbal memory; and he was not given to hypothesis and experiment.†   (source)
  • She was possessed of virtues after her own kind; if she had ever had a disagreement as to any detail with "Monsieur Thenardier,"—which was an inadmissible hypothesis, by the way,—she would not have blamed her husband in public on any subject whatever.†   (source)
  • Perhaps Oswald (for the Saxons were very superstitious) might have adopted some such hypothesis, to account for Ivanhoe's disappearance, had he not suddenly cast his eye upon a person attired like a squire, in whom he recognised the features of his fellow-servant Gurth.†   (source)
  • The sight of real money in full amount, in answer to a challenge for the same till then deemed slightly hypothetical had a great effect upon the spectators.†   (source)
  • Nor is this an empty hypothesis: a despot may find that it is his interest to render his subjects equal and to leave them ignorant, in order more easily to keep them slaves.†   (source)
  • For example, sir, in a dark, low, cross-beamed, panelled room of an old house, let us suppose a dead man, sitting in an arm-chair, with a blood-stain on his shirt-bosom,—and let us add to our hypothesis another man, issuing from the house, which he feels to be over-filled with the dead man's presence,—and let us lastly imagine him fleeing, Heaven knows whither, at the speed of a hurricane, by railroad!†   (source)
  • Human beings, in their generous endeavour to construct a hypothesis that shall not degrade a First Cause, have always hesitated to conceive a dominant power of lower moral quality than their own; and, even while they sit down and weep by the waters of Babylon, invent excuses for the oppression which prompts their tears.†   (source)
  • It is clear that the irascible miller was a man to interpret any chance-shot that grazed him as an attempt on his own life, and was liable to entanglements in this puzzling world, which, due consideration had to his own infallibility, required the hypothesis of a very active diabolical agency to explain them.†   (source)
  • "Or, I tell you what," Nastya interrupted impulsively, completely rejecting and forgetting her first hypothesis.†   (source)
  • There is a stamp of unity, of individual genius upon it, which inclines me to the former hypothesis, though I am not blind to the consideration that this unity may rather have arisen from that consensus of many minds which was a condition of primitive thought, foreign to our modern consciousness.†   (source)
  • The last hypothesis that remained was that each State formed a corporation enjoying a separate existence and distinct civil rights, and that it could therefore sue or be sued before a tribunal.†   (source)
▲ show less (of above)