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Supposititious   Listen
adjective
Supposititious  adj.  
1.
Fraudulently substituted for something else; not being what is purports to be; not genuine; spurious; counterfeit; as, a supposititious child; a supposititious writing.
2.
Suppositional; hypothetical. (R.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Supposititious" Quotes from Famous Books



... hardly necessary to say that the particular meanings assigned above to the single sounds in the analysis of the German word Finger-hut, are not assumed in any sense to be the real meanings of the vocal elements involved. The whole case is supposititious, and assumed merely to illustrate the unused possibilities of Language in the construction of significant words, and especially in the construction of scientific technicalities. To found a real ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... managed his affairs in some wrong or improper way;—his conduct would in itself deserve blame and denunciation, but at least it could not be said that he was not one of the family, or was not the heir to the property. {31} But had it been a slave or a supposititious son that was thus ruining and spoiling an inheritance to which he had no title, why, good Heavens! how infinitely more scandalous and reprehensible all would have declared it to be. And yet they show no such feeling in regard ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes

... and patriotism, in those things which are of themselves the only reward? We should consider these labors, as well as the new method he taught to arrive at knowledge, in our estimate of the sage as well as of the man. He was a moral philosopher, like Socrates. He even soared into the realm of supposititious truth, like Plato. He observed Nature, like Aristotle. He took away the syllogism from Thomas Aquinas,—not to throw contempt on metaphysical inquiry or dialectical reasoning, but to arrive by a better method at the knowledge of first principles; which once established, he allowed ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord

... process?—little more than this does it concern us to know. Truths become cold and commonplace, not by any number of rekindlings in men's bosoms, but by out-of-door reflections without inward kindling. Saying is the royal son of Seeing; but there is many a pretender to the throne; and when these supposititious people usurp, age after age, the honors that are not theirs, the throne and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... strongly maintained the authority of the four General Councils, especially of the fourth; put under anathema the godless writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, and also his person; the letter said to be written by Ibas to Maris, which Justinian had marked as supposititious, and the writings of Theodoret, which impugned orthodoxy and the twelve anathemas of Cyril. It was his purpose to quiet excitement, satisfying the Greeks by a specific condemnation of the Three Chapters, and the Latins by maintaining the rank of the Council ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies

... their own character; they record their views of their political relations and of their moral and spiritual nature, and publish the principles of their designs and conduct. What the historian puts into their mouths is no supposititious system of ideas, but an uncorrupted transcript of their intellectual and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... Florentine count of shattered fortune, married Pompilia, thinking her to be an heiress. When the young bride discovered that she had been married for her money only, she told her husband she was no heiress at all, but was only the supposititious child of Pietro (2 syl.), supplied by one Violant[^e], for the sake of keeping in his hands certain entailed property. The count now treated Pompilia so brutally that she ran away from home, under the protection of Caponsacchi, a young priest, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... teaches this language with ease to the ducklings she has hatched from supposititious eggs, and educates as her own offspring; and the wag-tails or hedge-sparrows learn it from the young cuckoo, their foster nursling, and supply him with food long after he can fly about, whenever they hear his ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth

... great attention, and her mild but speaking countenance manifested a strong sympathy in the anticipated agony of the supposititious sufferer. At first she seemed at a loss how to act; then, taking a hand of Deerslayer's she affectionately recommended to him to borrow her Bible, and to read it while the savages were inflicting their torments. When the other honestly admitted that it exceeded ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... struggle through chaos into conformity, or something like it,—as we see Laplanders, Esquimaux, &c. inferior in the present state, as the elements become more inexorable. But even then this higher pre-Adamite supposititious creation must have had an origin and a Creator—for a creation is a more natural imagination than a fortuitous concourse of atoms: all things remount to a fountain, though they may flow ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... madden the people to preserve their independence, and contribute cheerfully to the expenses of the war. France and England formerly complained of Holland—the Athenians employed the same policy against the Macedonians and Persians. Such is the origin of a vast number of supposititious papers and volumes, which sometimes, at a remote date, confound the labours of the honest historian, and too often serve the purposes of the dishonest, with whom they become authorities. The crude and suspicious libels which were drawn out of their obscurity in Cromwell's ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... however, she was now to desist, and from all fatigue of receiving the guests who were arriving by different trains throughout the day. She was to lie at her ease on silken cushions in that pretty room of her own, upon whose window-box the supposititious burglar had set his too heavy boot. I was amused to see that the white chintzes of the chairs and hangings were flowered with pink carnations, and that garlands of the flower, tied with pink ribbons, formed the frieze ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann

... to be. Not less earnestly than benevolently do our quack doctors implore us to beware of spurious articles; Day and Martin exhort us not to take our polish from counterfeit blacking: every advertiser beseeches the "pensive public" to be upon its guard against supposititious articles—all, in short, is knavery, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII., No. 324, July 26, 1828 • Various

... to Perez, "for, according to my theology, you would do your duty neither to God nor the world, unless you did as you are doing." Yet the excellent pair of conspirators at Madrid could wring no damning proofs from the lips of the supposititious conspirators in Flanders, save that Don John, after Escovedo's arrival in Madrid, wrote, impatiently and frequently, to demand that he should be sent back, together with the money which he had gone to Spain to procure. "Money, more money, and Escovedo," wrote the Governor, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... to forget that the account in Genesis gives us no hint of any such miracle. Noah was to take the animals to him, and to take unto him of all food that is eaten; and, as Hugh Miller remarks, "the expedient of having recourse to supposititious miracle in order to get over a difficulty insurmountable on every natural principle, is not of the nature of an argument, but simply an evidence of the want of it. Argument is at an end when supposititious miracle is introduced." But, if a miracle was worked, ...
— The Deluge in the Light of Modern Science - A Discourse • William Denton

... for thy homesteads of a former space, Not for thy folk of supposititious race; Something I love thee, river, for thy rest, More for my ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend

... finally, putting a brush in suitable fashion into the spout through which the water is poured, he went off. The nuns, returning to see the work through an opening where the cloth had slipped, saw the supposititious master in full canonicals; wherefore, believing that he was working might and main and was by way of doing different work from that which the untidy knave was doing, they left it at that for some days, without thinking more about it. Finally, having grown desirous ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Volume 1, Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi • Giorgio Vasari

... field of metallurgy and discuss what might apply, and how it might apply, under a hundred supposititious conditions would be too great a digression from the subject in hand. It is enough to call attention here to the fact that the residues from every treatment carry some metal, and that this loss has to be deducted from the gross value of the ore in ...
— Principles of Mining - Valuation, Organization and Administration • Herbert C. Hoover

... living proof of what the process, comparatively poor for ourselves, could do at its best and with clay originally and domestically kneaded to the right plasticity; besides which he shone, to my fancy, and all the more for its seeming so brightly and quietly in his very grain, with the vague, the supposititious, but the intensely accent-giving stamp of the Latin quarter, which we so thinly imagined and so superficially brushed on our pious walks to the Luxembourg and through the parts where the glamour might have hung thickest. We were to see him a little—but ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James

... Vergilian by Renaissance readers simply because the manuscripts of the poem and ancient writers, from Lucan and Statius to Martial and Suetonius, all attribute the work to him, recent critics have usually been skeptical or downright recusant. Some insist that it is a forgery or supposititious work; others that it is a liberally padded re-working of Vergil's original. Only a few have accepted it as a very youthful failure of Vergil's, or as an attempt of the poet to parody the then popular romances. Recent objections ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank

... had suggested itself to him involved three unhistorical inventions: first, an attempt to escape, in which Mary and her cause would become involved in the guilt of the murderous fanatic, Mortimer; secondly, a supposititious love for Leicester, who would use his influence with Elizabeth to bring about a meeting of the two queens; and, finally, the meeting itself, in which Mary's long pent-up passion would get the better of her and betray her into a deadly insult of her rival. After ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... summoned by the order of Lady Booby, listened with the utmost attention to Gammar Andrews's story; and, when she had finished, asked her if the supposititious child had no mark on its breast? To which she answered, "Yes, he had as fine a strawberry as ever grew in a garden." This Joseph acknowledged, and, unbuttoning his coat, at the intercession of the company, showed to them. "Well," says Gaffar Andrews, who was a comical sly old fellow, and very likely ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding

... must observe that these Epistles of Ignatius have come down to us also in an interpolated form, abounding indeed with substitutions and additions, but generally resembling paraphrases of the original text. Of the general character of that supposititious work, two passages corresponding with our quotations from the genuine productions of Ignatius may give a sufficiently accurate idea. The first passage above quoted is thus paraphrased: "For if the prayer of one or two possesses ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler

... fact, the revelation of which now appalled him as if he had never suspected it. Ruth, Ruth—the very name was significant of calamity! Flemming's words rang in his ears: "You would not marry her!" He had not replied to Flemming that night when the case was merely supposititious. But now—it seemed to Lynde that he had never loved Ruth until this moment. The knowledge of her misfortune had added to his love that great pity of which he had spoken to his friend. But could he marry ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... proof to them of the genuineness of the letter. It appears from other references in the same epistle (ch. ii. 2) that some busybody had been writing a letter to the Thessalonians, which purported to be a message from Paul; he puts them on their guard against these supposititious documents. At the end of the letter to the Galatians you find in the old version: "Ye see how large a letter I have written unto you with my own hand;" but the right rendering is in the new version: "See with how large letters [what a bold chirography] I have written unto you with my own ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden

... authentic history? Who was the father of Romulus and Remus? nay, not so very long ago, of Merlin? Another party denied the possibility of the thing altogether. Among these was Luther, who declared the children either to be supposititious, or else mere imps, disguised as innocent sucklings, and known as Wechselkinder, or changelings, who were common enough, as everybody must be aware. Of the intercourse itself Luther had no doubts.[111] A third party took a middle ground, and believed that vermin and toads might ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... who was inventing history as well as forging a production, did not deem it necessary to be actuated at all times in his representations by the love of truth: in putting forth supposititious matters as matters of fact, he advanced his own opinions and conjectures as the conjectures and opinions of the persons who figured in his narrative: to give an example: —"Tiberius and Augusta abstained ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross

... heap on his brother-in-law for commonplace offenses; moreover, in view of the disappointing revolution, Murat's course was perhaps as good as any other. He must, however, bear whatever responsibility attached to it, and that responsibility would have been his even without the supposititious letter which he never received. The contempt of the people for the boy-soldiers at whose head he had marched into Madrid, combined with disdain for his own pompousness and with fury at his subsequent cruelty, ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... shape of a legacy which she chose to believe was being kept from her by her enemies. In August of this year she wrote to Dr. Meryon, who was then living at Nice, and invited him to come and assist her in settling her debts, and getting possession of this supposititious property. 'A woman of high rank and good fortune,' she continues, 'who has built herself a palais in a remote part of America, has announced her intention of passing the rest of her life with me, so much has she been struck with my situation and conduct. [Footnote: ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston

... singular feature of his mental condition. He was enchained by certain superstitious impressions in regard to the dwelling which he tenanted, and whence, for many years, he had never ventured forth—in regard to an influence whose supposititious force was conveyed in terms too shadowy here to be restated—an influence which some peculiarities in the mere form and substance of his family mansion, had, by dint of long sufferance, he said, obtained over his spirit—an effect which the physique of the gray walls and turrets, ...
— Short-Stories • Various

... abroad; and, on his return to England, he built this house; the bedchamber being contrived, like the cells of monks, with a refectory, and every other appendage of a monastery; even to a cemetery, and a coffin, inscribed with the name of a supposititious ancient bishop. Some curious Gothic chairs, bought at a sale of the curiosities in this house, are now ...
— Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 475 - Vol. XVII, No. 475. Saturday, February 5, 1831 • Various

... certain time, anything can remove them save the carpenter's plane. If any seneschal, by way of increasing the interest of the apartments, had, by means of paint, or any other mode of imitation, endeavoured to palm upon posterity supposititious stigmata, I conceive that the impostor would have chosen the Queen's cabinet and the bedroom for the scene of his trick, placing his bloody tracery where it could be distinctly seen by visitors, instead of hiding it behind the traverse in this manner. The ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... influence in the matter of the proclamation, is disproved by all that is known concerning it.[37] The connection with the battle is direct, avowed, and reasonable; that with the gubernatorial congress is supposititious and improbable. Governor Curtin says distinctly that the President, being informed by himself and two others that such a conference was in preparation, "did not attempt to conceal the fact that we were upon the eve of an emancipation policy," in response ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse

... envious, irritable, vain, pedantic and bombastical, petulant and quarrelsome,—ever on the watch for an affront, and always in the attitude of a fretful porcupine with a quill pointed in every direction against real or supposititious enemies. In such a state of mental alarm and physical vaporing did he live, that he seems to have proclaimed a promiscuous war against all gainsayers,— that is, the literary world; and for the better assurance to them of his indomitable valor, and to himself ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various

... the book again, and sees a new and profound significance in every sentence, and he says: "I was perfectly blind to this book before." Yet he is no cleverer than he used to be. Only something has happened to him. Let a gold watch be discovered by a supposititious man who has never heard of watches. He has a sense of beauty. He admires the watch, and takes pleasure in it. He says: "This is a beautiful piece of bric—brac; I fully appreciate this delightful trinket." Then imagine his feelings when someone ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT

... first that this might be a farce where a supposititious ghost brings about absurd predicaments in a country house, having seen something along these lines, but a reading of the thing enlightened me as to its character, which, to put it bluntly, is rather thick. There ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... to say any thing more certain concerning the person to whom our author has addressed his work. It appears, however, from many circumstances in these Letters, that she was not a supposititious marchioness, like her of the Worlds of M. de Fontenelle, and that they have really been written to a woman as distinguished by her rank as by her manners. Perhaps she was a lady of the school of the Temple, or of Seaux. But these details, in reality, as well as those which ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach

... eight machines in the other, illustrates an instance where the range of vision is not the same; but I contend that the stereoscopic effect is then confined to five {349} houses and five machines, otherwise MR. WILKINSON'S supposititious case (ibid.), of all machines in one, and all houses in the other, might ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 206, October 8, 1853 • Various

... This supposititious phenomenon is so very disagreeable to Mr. Guppy that his voice quakes as he says in a moral way, "Tony, I should have thought that what we went through last night would have been a lesson to you never to be personal any more as long as you lived." ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... some other way. If someone had sent from that Western town. Would the girls who had held themselves above the Boyd connection feel mortified at many of the comments they had made? She was glad she had held up some supposititious cases; though, truth to tell, Zaidee felt too secure of her own standing to need any propping, and there was a strand of independence in her character, but she had been first all her life and in a curious fashion she ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... suspicious and jealous, he might have thought it some one's else affair than his, and allowed himself the delight of this acquaintanceship, guarding and loving her like a brother, but none of these supposititious cases was so. The matter as it stood threw the whole responsibility upon him, and, as a man of honor, he could see but one ...
— A Beautiful Alien • Julia Magruder

... expect the jury to believe, however," Goldberger pointed out, "that this supposititious person had ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson

... (Expos. Cathol. Fide [*Symboli Explanatio ad Damasum, among the supposititious works of St. Jerome: now ascribed to Pelagius]) that "they are anathema who say God has laid impossibilities upon man." Now what a man cannot fulfil by himself is impossible to him. Therefore a man can fulfil all the commandments ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas

... viz. that only first-class passengers could use the Pullman, but had to pay extra for it. I wrote back indignantly and said the statement in his first letter was analogous, and equally truthful, to the following supposititious case. A meets his friend B in a town. A points to a jeweller's shop, and tells B he is "entitled" to anything in it. So he is if he pays for it, and it was the same with ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money

... you ought to tell her. Tell her—and all will be well. She has put herself in the supposititious woman's place, and she says, 'He ought to tell her.' She says it earnestly, vehemently. That means that if she were the woman, she would wish to be told. She will despise the conventional barriers—she will be touched, ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland

... this exhibition, who do not profess an intimacy with the objects herein collected for their amusement, from being misled by the supposititious circumstance of the highest prize having commanded the best picture, we beg to point to their attention the following peculiarities (by no means recommendatory) in the work selected by the most fortunate of the jewel-hunters; it is catalogued "The ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... the powers of making war and of making treaties; consequently, that Government possesses the power of acquiring territory, either by conquest or treaty." (See Cerre v. Pitot, 6 Cr., 336.) And I add, it also possesses the power of governing it, when acquired, not by resorting to supposititious powers, nowhere found described in the Constitution, but expressly granted in the authority to make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory of the ...
— Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott versus John F.A. Sandford • Benjamin C. Howard

... of James II., the party of William, Prince of Orange, asserted that the Prince of Orange was a supposititious child, and accused James of having spirited away the persona who could have proved the birth of the Queen's child, and of having made the midwife leave the kingdom precipitately, she being the only person who had actually ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans

... chemistry disagreed with his ideas as to colloids. Everybody admitted that the chemists must have the final word on this subject: are you now claiming that religion or theology, or whatever you choose to call it, is also entitled to a say in a matter of that kind?" This supposititious conversation illustrates the confusion which exists in many minds as to the point at issue. One science is entitled to contradict another, just as one scientific man is entitled to contradict another on a question of fact. But on a question of fact ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle

... on account of their method and air of method. In "The Murders of the Rue Morgue," for instance, what ingenuity is displayed in unraveling a web which has been woven for the express purpose of unraveling? The reader is made to confound the ingenuity of the supposititious Dupin with that of the writer of the story. These works brought the name of Poe himself somewhat conspicuously before the law courts of Paris. The journal, La Commerce, gave a feuilleton in which "The Murders of the Rue Morgue" ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various

... acute pain in her head, she became gay, light-hearted, irresponsible, joyous. There was an undercurrent of suffering in her simulated mirth, but Perigal did not notice it; he was taken by surprise at the sudden change in her mood. He responded to her supposititious merriment; he laughed and joked as irrepressibly as ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte

... a certain herb he was able, and had given frequent experiments thereof, to toss his sinewy piece of generation in the act of carnal concupiscence above three score and ten times in the space of four-and-twenty hours. Of that I believe nothing, the number is supposititious, and too prodigally foisted in. Give no faith unto it, I beseech thee, but prithee trust me in this, and thy credulity therein shall not be wronged, for it is true, and probatum est, that my pioneer of nature—the sacred ithyphallian champion —is of all stiff-intruding blades the primest. ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... exclaimed he, in the squeaky tones of a eunuch, shaking the young fellow by a button of his coat which he had laid hold of. "Do you want to know my opinion? Well, all your newspapers are of no use whatsoever. Come now, let us put a supposititious case. I am the father of a family, am I not? Good. I go to the cafe for a game at ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger

... rebellious Roumanian, Croatian, and Slavonian subjects, and their chances of success were from the outset slender. In a moment of exultation, April 14, 1849, the Diet at Budapest went so far as to declare Hungary an independent nation and to elect Kossuth to the presidency of a supposititious republic. The only effect, however, was to impart to the contest an international character. Upon appeal from Francis Joseph, Tsar Nicholas I. intervened in behalf of the "legitimate" Austrian power; whereupon the Hungarians, seeking in vain for ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg

... supposititious," he appealed, leaping to his feet. "That would be cruelty! Tell me that it's true, and that I am free to tell you that I love you—love you! You know that I do, and that there's no use in ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton

... "Iliad," we have, if not positive proof, at least very good reason for believing it intended as a series of lyrics; but, granting the epic intention, I can say only that the work is based in an imperfect sense of art. The modern epic is, of the supposititious ancient model, but an inconsiderate and blindfold imitation. But the day of these artistic anomalies is over. If, at any time, any very long poems were popular in reality—which I doubt—it is at least clear that no very long poem will ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... reason, that the hedge-sparrows, etc., can be induced at all to sit on the egg of the cuckoo without being scandalised at the vast disproportionate size of the supposititious egg; but the brute creation, I suppose, have very little idea of size, colour, or number. For the common hen, I know, when the fury of incubation is on her, will sit on a single shapeless stone instead ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White

... sent for, and then proceeds to relate his own history. He has been taught to believe that Polybus of Corinth and Merope of Doris were his parents. But once at a banquet he was charged with being a supposititious child; the insult galled him, and he went to Delphi to consult the oracle. It was predicted to him that he should commit incest with his mother, and that his father should fall by his hand. Appalled and horror-stricken, ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... absently, as if wearied with the exertion of their talk. His eyes had left Milo's, and had concentrated on the man's big and hairy hands. As Milo spoke of the supposititious criminals who desired his possessions enough to do murder for them, his fists clenched, tightly. And to Brice's memory came ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune

... perfectly well acquainted with the particulars of this story, which he had heard so often repeated, proposed to Hatchway that a person should be hired to introduce himself to the commodore, with a supposititious letter of recommendation from this detested kinsman; an imposition that, in all likelihood, would afford abundance ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... is a pun here, that cannot be rendered, between [Greek: apobolimaios], which means, one who throws away his weapons, and [Greek: upobolimaios], which signifies, a supposititious child. ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... watertight compartments, wheels, rods, cranks, levers, and the thousand-and-one items which go to make up a mechanical contrivance. Great care is taken in constructing toy models to reproduce at least the chief points of the original, in order to give them a supposititious educational value. The parents then fondly imagine that, in stocking the nursery with these abominations, they are largely assisting in the ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst

... the wretched surroundings of her childhood, such she knew to be the fate of many of her kind. There was nothing to be hoped for from the generosity of men. Her lovers were leaving her. Blackmail, speculation on the Bourse, even the desperate expedient of a supposititious child, all these she tried as means of acquiring a competence. But fortune was shy of the widow. There was need for dispatch. The time was drawing near when it might be man's unkind privilege to put her scornfully aside as a thing ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving

... rolled rapidly over my startled soul. The facts were clear, the hypothesis definite, the sequence certain; there was no ambiguity, no supposititious hinge upon which I could hang a hope; no, not one. I could not even expect that I should be missed and sought for; there was no one to search for me. The simple habitans of the village I had left knew me not—I ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid

... may be found for Madame de Verneuil in such an attempt as this; whatever indulgence may be conceded to a woman baffled in her ambition, misled by her confidence in a supposititious claim, and urged on by a blind and uncalculating affection for her children, it is difficult to find any excuse for the persevering ingratitude of her step-brother. As regards M. d'Entragues, we have already shown that he had more than sufficient cause for seeking revenge upon a monarch who sacrificed ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... deciding to discover it. Finally, he began to suspect. "Well," he said to himself, "is it possible she believes that I am making love to her daughter? No, that would be too much!" And, combating with ingenious and loyal arguments that supposititious conviction, he felt indignant that she had lent for an instant to this healthy and almost paternal affection any suspicion of gallantry. He became more and more irritated against the Countess, utterly unwilling to concede that she ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant

... nature of trade between nations? If we are to have any clear notion at all as to just what truth there is in the notion of the necessary commercial rivalry of States, we must have some fairly clear notion of how the commercial relationship of nations works. And that can best be illustrated by a supposititious example. At the present time we are talking, for instance, of "capturing" German or British or ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... her soul. Every day she saw the marquis, who did all he could to increase her regret, and incessantly stirred up her ill-humour by repeating that the count and countess were triumphing over her misfortune, and insinuating that they were importing a supposititious child to disinherit her. As usual both in private and political affairs, he began by corrupting the marchioness's religious views, to pervert her into crime. The marquis was one of those libertines so rare at that time, a period less unhappy than ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... useless. And the gods, when they had lost this weapon, fled incontinently. But that antiquity vouches for it, it were quite against common belief to think that men prevailed against gods. (We call them gods in a supposititious rather than in a real sense; for to such we give the title of deity by the custom of nations, not because ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... To Farquharson, therefore, the Inspector looked for assistance. He arranged for him to travel with the old fellow, under the pretence of visiting a large school on the invitation of a master there whom he knew; this supposititious friend had included McConnachie in the letter (really written by the Inspector) which Farquharson had ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett

... stoical, stricture, stringency, stultify, stupendous, sublimity, suborn, subpoena, subsidiary, subsidy, substratum, subtend, subterfuge, subterranean, subvention, subvert, sudorific, supercilious, supernal, supervene, supine, supposititious, surreptitious, surrogate, surveillance, susceptible, sustenance, sycophantic, syllogism, sylvan, symmetrical, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... in every way, not only because he must do so to any one who believed in his paint, but because he had done this innocent person the wrong of listening to a defamation of his instinct and good sense, and had been willing to see him suffer for a purely supposititious offence. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells



Words linked to "Supposititious" :   theoretical, suppositious, hypothetical, supposed, theoretic, divinatory, supposition, hypothetic, suppositional, conjectural



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