[f. suf- = SUB- + FICTION, after supposition.] A fiction taken as a hypothesis.
1817. Coleridge, Biog. Lit., v. In the majority of instances these hypotheses or suppositions better deserve the name of ὐποποιήσεις, or suffictions. Ibid., xii. Arbitrary suppositions, or rather suffictions. Ibid. (1833), Table-t. (1835), II. 197. It seems to me a great delusion to call or suppose the imagination of a subtle fluid, or molecules penetrable with the same, a legitimate hypothesis. It is a mere suffiction.
