a. Now rare or Obs. [Partly shortened or illiterate form of SUPPOSITITIOUS, partly directly from SUPPOSITION.]
1. = SUPPOSITITIOUS 1.
1624. Mountagu, Immed. Addr., 212. The testimony produced is none of his: It is suppositious, and a counterfeit.
1656. Bramhall, Replic., v. 206. I spake not this to the disparagement of that venerable Saint, but to discredit that suppositious treatise.
1672. Marvell, Reh. Transp., I. 138. The only question … was … whether it [sc. the child] was not spurious or suppositious.
1768. Blackstone, Comm., III. xxiii. 362. When a widow feigns herself with child, in order to exclude the next heir, and a suppositious birth is suspected to be intended.
1815. Mrs. Pilkington, Celebrity, III. 130. With the intention of ordering the suppositious Mrs. Johnson to quit her roof.
1863. Redding, Yesterday & To-day, III. 275. Suppositious letters between the Rev. James Hackman and Miss Ray.
2. = SUPPOSITITIOUS 2.
1655. [see SUPPOSITITIOUS 2, quot. c. 1645].
1781. Warton, Hist. Engl. Poetry, III. p. vii. Who … is often a monarch that never existed, and who seldom, whether real or suppositious, has any concern with the circumstances of the narrative.
1793. Anna Seward, Let. Parr, 3 Feb. The suppositious treasons, forged and alleged.
3. Involving or based on supposition; = SUPPOSITIONAL, SUPPOSITIVE 1.
1698. Hearne, Duct. Hist. (1714), I. 7. The Julian Period … is a suppositious Number.
1810. W. Wilson, Hist. Diss. Ch., III. 362. Their integrity … appears to us as very suppositious.
1824. J. Johnson, Typogr., II. xii. 457. Although suppositious alphabets of the aboriginal Britons have been produced.
1847. R. W. Hamilton, Rewards & Punishm., viii. (1853), 369. With such exception we have nothing to do: it is purely suppositious.
b. ? Addicted to supposition or conjecture. rare–1.
1798. R. P., Tour Wales, 13 (MS.). The Castle [at Ludlow] on whose early date the suppositious antiquary has many doubts to determine.
Hence Suppositiously adv., spuriously; hypothetically.
1693. trans. Dupin’s Hist. Eccl. Writers, II. 30. Books … that were suppositiously obtruded upon the World by Hereticks.
1862. Masson, in Macm. Mag., Aug., 324. The career suppositiously assigned to men of his class in most Art and Culture novels.
