propositions

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of proposition.

   Voters weighed two competing propositions about school funding.

   The logician tested whether the propositions could all be true at once.

   Note

   The plural belongs to the countable uses of proposition: plans or suggestions put forward, the terms of an offered deal, complete sentences, and, in some US states, measures put to voters. The uncountable act of offering has no plural. Because the informal sexual sense also pluralizes, propositions can read two ways, and the surrounding words usually settle which one is meant. The same spelling serves as the present-tense verb.

2. 2
   verbcolloquial

   Third-person singular simple present of proposition.

   The startup founder propositions venture funds with a detailed growth plan.

   Whenever a rival firm propositions her team, she reports it to legal.

   Note

   An informal, transitive verb whose object is always the person approached. One propositions a fund or a rival's team, never the plan itself. The offer comes after the object, in a phrase like with a detailed growth plan. The sexual reading belongs to the verb as much as to the plural noun, so in workplace writing the context needs to make a business meaning plain.

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