hypothesis
A tentative conjecture explaining an observation, phenomenon or scientific problem and that can be tested by further observation, investigation or experimentation.
Other meanings
An assumption taken to be true for the purpose of argument or investigation.
The antecedent of a conditional statement.
Related words
- counterhypothesis
- hypothesist
- multihypothesis
- subhypothesis
- hypothesize
- hypothetic
- hypothetical
- hypothetically
- alternative hypothesis
- Avogadro's hypothesis
- ergodic hypothesis
- Fisher hypothesis
Example sentences
Word history
From Ancient Greek "ὑπόθεσις" (base, basis of an argument, supposition).
Where this comes from
This definition is adapted from “hypothesis” on Wiktionary, by its contributors; example sentences are from Tatoeba, credited to their authors above, published under CC BY-SA 4.0. This page is published under the same licence.