| 词组 | presumptive, presumptuous |
| 释义 | presumptive, presumptuous Bryson 1984, Shaw 1975, 1987, the Oxford American Dictionary and Copperud 1970, 1980 warn us not to confuse presumptive with presumptuous. An old sense (1609) of presumptive does, in fact, mean "presumptuous." This sense, to judge from the example in Bryson 1984, is still found on rare occasions. It is not wrong, but it is rare enough to occasion surprise and perhaps confusion. We do not recommend your using it. Here are a couple of mainstream uses of the words: • The old indictment was now revised by the federal government to place him in a group of presumptive conspirators —Robert Penn Warren, Jefferson Davis Gets His Citizenship Back, 1980 • I don't even claim that the book is wholly purified of the sins it rails against with such presumptuous authority —Zinsser 1976 This is a question you can easily settle by using your desk dictionary. Copperud 1980 says also that presumptuous is sometimes misspelled presumptious. Actually, presumptious is an old spelling of the word; the OED has examples from about 1400 to 1815. Our files have examples from the 1940s and 1950s. It is, however, a rare spelling that is better avoided. |
| 随便看 |
英语用法大全包含2888条英语用法指南，基本涵盖了全部常用英文词汇及语法点的翻译及用法，是英语学习的有利工具。