assuming

Pluralassumings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of assume.

   By assuming control of the company, she changed its entire direction.

   The committee is assuming responsibility for the project's failures.

   Note

   Every meaning of assume passes through this form, from supposing something true to taking on a duty, putting on a feigned manner, or adopting a person or a cause. It builds progressives (is assuming responsibility) and gerunds that work as nouns (by assuming control), and in both it takes its object directly. Context decides which meaning is in play: assuming a role is taking it on, while assuming a fact is supposing it.

2. 2
   adjective

   Behaving in a haughty, arrogant way; presuming too much about one's own importance.

   Like a guest who walks into a house and starts giving orders as if they owned it.

   The young clerk had an assuming air that irritated his superiors.

   Critics found her tone insufferably assuming.

   Similarpresumptuous, arrogant, haughty, conceited, overbearing

   Oppositemodest, humble, unassuming, meek

   Note

   Behind the adjective is the verb's meaning "to claim without right, to arrogate": an assuming person takes on more standing than is theirs. It grades freely (more assuming, most assuming) and sits comfortably with nouns like air, manner and tone. Keep it apart from the participle, which is neutral. Assuming control describes an act, but an assuming manner passes judgment.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A belief or idea taken to be true without proof; an assumption.

   Like building a house on a guess instead of on solid ground.

   The detective's entire case collapsed once that single assuming proved false.

   We made too many assumings about the budget before seeing the actual numbers.

   Similarassumption, supposition, presumption, premise

   Note

   Here the gerund has become a countable noun with its own plural, assumings. Thomas Burton's diary entry of December 16, 1656 shows the step in a single sentence: it moves from Nayler's "assuming the attributes of Christ" to "a positive denial of these assumings." There the noun means claims taken on rather than things supposed, so it can carry either side of the verb form.

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