premises

1. 1
   nounplural

   Land together with all the buildings on it, especially when thought of as a single place.

   Security guards patrol the premises after closing time each night.

   The restaurant brews its own beer right on the premises.

   Similarproperty, grounds, site, building

   Note

   Always plural, even when it names a single shop, farm or house. There is no singular premise in this meaning. Its home phrase is on the premises, which means at the place itself, as with the caretaker who lives on the premises. The usage grew from the language of deeds, where the premises were the property recited at the start, and the legal meaning still keeps that older use.

2. 2
   noun

   Plural of premise.

   The debate stalled once the two premises were shown to contradict each other.

   His whole case rested on premises that no one had checked.

   Note

   An ordinary countable plural: an argument can rest on two premises or three, and each can be true or false on its own. In logic, the premises of a syllogism are the propositions from which the conclusion is deduced. The same spelling also serves the land-and-buildings meaning, which exists only in the plural and names one place. Whether a number makes sense usually tells you which one is meant.

3. 3
   nounplural

   The property or matter that a conveyance or deed is concerned with.

   The conveyance transferred the premises to the buyer free of any claims.

   The deed's opening clauses identified the premises being sold.

   Similarproperty

   Note

   A conveyancer's term that points back into the document itself. The opening part of a deed names the grantor, the grantee and the land or thing granted, covering everything before the habendum. The premises are what that part recites. When later clauses transfer the premises, they mean exactly that recited property, so the word works as a defined term inside the instrument.

4. 4
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of premise.

   The report premises its forecast on steady economic growth.

   He premises every chapter on a question he then tries to answer.

   Note

   The verb form you use with a singular subject: a report premises its forecast, and a writer premises a chapter. Besides resting an argument on an assumption, the verb can mean setting something out beforehand as an introduction to what follows. It sounds and looks exactly like the plural noun, so only the grammar of the sentence shows that a verb is at work.

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