assume/suspect/suppose

[Anonymous]

can anyone please tell what's the difference between
assume
suspect
suppose?

in wich cases are these verbs used or can they be used as synonyms?

thanks

blackmarket

 

[RonBee]

Those words cannot be used as synonyms.

If you suspect something is true you may believe it is true, but you are not certain. Also, you might not have any evidence to back up your suspicion. If you suppose something is true you are saying that the evidence you have so far leads you to that conclusion. If you assume something to be true you are saying that barring evidence to the contrary that it is true. The word assume expresses the most certainty.

 

[blackmarket]

thanks for ypur quick reply!

I think I nearly got it. Could you gimme some examples whene using these verbs?

blackmarket

 

[RonBee]

I suspect that he is up to no good.
I suppose you expect me to believe that story?
Since you were an honor student, then I assume that you got good grades.

 

[RonBee]

assume:

• http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=assume
  http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=assume
  http://www.bartleby.com/61/86/A0478600.html
  http://www.onelook.com/?w=assume
  http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/assume

Never assume that the guy understands that you and he have a relationship.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/d/davebarry141830.html

It is common to assume that human progress affects everyone- that even the dullest man, in these bright days, knows more than any man of, say, the Eighteenth Century, and is far more civilized. This assumption is quite erroneous."
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/h/hlmencke142417.html

I can only assume that your editorial writer tripped over the First Amendment and thought it was the office cat.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/e/ebwhite117178.html

Do not assume that he who seeks to comfort you now, lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. His life may also have much sadness and difficulty, that remains far beyond yours. Were it otherwise, he would never have been able to find these words.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/rainermari141092.html

We cheerfully assume that in some mystic way love conquers all, that good outweighs evil in the just balances of the universe and at the 11th hour something gloriously triumphant will prevent the worst before it happens.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/b/brooksatki146292.html

Never assume the obvious is true.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/w/williamsaf133876.html

Children always assume the sexual lives of their parents come to a grinding halt at their conception.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alanbennet126103.html

You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/annelamott107508.html

People mistakenly assume that their thinking is done by their head; it is actually done by the heart which first dictates the conclusion, then commands the head to provide the reasoning that will defend it.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/anthonydem133824.html

Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much... the wheel, New York, wars, and so on, whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/d/douglasada134031.html

People assume you slept your way to the top. Frankly, I couldn't sleep my way to the middle.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/j/jonievans112153.html

Don't assume you're always going to be understood. I wrote in a column that one should put a cup of liquid in the cavity of a turkey when roasting it. Someone wrote me that 'the turkey tasted great, but the plastic cup melted.'
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/h/heloise144157.html

Because your own strength is unequal to the task, do not assume that it is beyond the powers of man; but if anything is within the powers and province of man, believe that it is within your own compass also.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/marcusaure118615.html

After Leaving Las Vegas I did assume that things would get a lot easier than they've been. But it's just been a mirror of the way my career's been from the beginning, so for it to have changed would have been strange. My career has never been perfect.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/e/elisabeths128991.html

More:
http://www.hiplists.com/cgi-htdig/h...uote;method=or;sort=score;words=assume;page=2

 

[RonBee]

Suppose

I suppose every old scholar has had the experience of reading something in a book which was significant to him, but which he could never find again.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/ralphwaldo107465.html

Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/marktwain134158.html

I suppose society is wonderfully delightful. To be in it is merely a bore. But to be out of it is simply a tragedy.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/o/oscarwilde118643.html

Ah, well, then I suppose I shall have to die beyond my means.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/o/oscarwilde126071.html

Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/j/jamesabal131760.html

I do not suppose I shall be remembered for anything. But I don't think about my work in those terms. It is just as vulgar to work for the sake of posterity as to work for the sake of money.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/o/orsonwelle109683.html

I suppose I should get a VCR, but the only thing I like about television is its ephemerality.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/p/pjo'rour108086.html

Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know - and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/i/isaacasimo140879.html

I suppose, in a way, this has become part of my soul. It is a symbol of my life.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/g/gendouglas115569.html

Do not suppose, however, that I intend to urge a diet of classics on anybody. I have seen such diets at work. I have known people who have actually read all, or almost all, the guaranteed Hundred Best Books. God save us from reading nothing but the best.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/robertsond132333.html

Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood or appreciated.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/ralphwaldo133893.html

More:
http://www.hiplists.com/cgi-htdig/h...te;method=and;sort=score;words=suppose;page=2

 

[RonBee]

Suspect

Suspect all extraneous and groundless civilities.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/t/thomasfull125921.html

I suspect that there is no other single profession that does more to contribute to our annoying linguistic convolutions than advertising, unless it's politics.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/j/jefiricha103085.html

To suspect your own mortality is to know the beginning of terror, to learn irrefutably that you are mortal is to know the end of terror.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/w/walterlipp115430.html

Brains, you know, are suspect in the Republican Party.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/w/walterlipp115430.html

Someday I suspect, when Jesus has definitely got me for a sunbeam, my works may be adequately assessed.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/n/noelcoward111555.html

I suspect that it is not without significance that the word remembering can be formed as re-membering.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/h/herberto'd116587.html

The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/o/oscarwilde138415.html

We are always paid for our suspicion by finding what we suspect.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/h/henrydavid130924.html

More:
http://www.hiplists.com/cgi-htdig/h...te;method=and;sort=score;words=suspect;page=2

 

[Red5]

Wow, Ron, that's quite a list! ;-)

 

[Tdol]

All the more reason to give that man a title. ;-)

 

[RonBee]

Wow, Ron, that's quite a list! ;-)

I found a bunch of good quotes at that website. Some of them are funny. For example, there's this one: "Don't assume you're always going to be understood. I wrote in a column that one should put a cup of liquid in the cavity of a turkey when roasting it. Someone wrote me that 'the turkey tasted great, but the plastic cup melted.'" (Heloise)