• enPR: prĕ'mĭs, IPA: /ˈpɹɛ.mɪs/

premise (plural premises)

1. A proposition antecedently supposed or proved; something previously stated or assumed as the basis of further argument; a condition; a supposition.

   • c. 1604–1605, William Shakespeare, “All’s VVell, that Ends VVell”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act II, scene i]:

     The premises observed, / Thy will by my performance shall be served.

2. (logic) Any of the first propositions of a syllogism, from which the conclusion is deduced.

   • While the premises stand firm, it is impossible to shake the conclusion.

3. (usually, in the plural, legal) Matters previously stated or set forth; especially, that part in the beginning of a deed, the office of which is to express the grantor and grantee, and the land or thing granted or conveyed, and all that precedes the habendum; the thing demised or granted.
4. (usually, in the plural) A piece of real estate; a building and its adjuncts. (This meaning arose from meaning #3, by owners of land and/or buildings finding the word in their title deeds and wrongly guessing its meaning.)

   trespass on another’s premises

5. (authorship) The fundamental concept that drives the plot of a film or other story.

• French: prémisse
• German: Prämisse, Voraussetzung
• Italian: premessa
• Portuguese: premissa
• Russian: предпосы́лка
• Spanish: premisa

• French: prémisse
• Portuguese: premissa
• Russian: предпосы́лка
• Spanish: premisa

• Portuguese: premissa

• French: local
• German: Lokal, Räumlichkeit, Lokalität
• Italian: locale, posto
• Russian: террито́рия

• mission

premise (premises, present participle premising; past and past participle premised)

1. To state or assume something as a proposition to an argument.
2. To make a premise.
3. To set forth beforehand, or as introductory to the main subject; to offer previously, as something to explain or aid in understanding what follows.

   • I premise these particulars that the reader may know that I enter upon it as a very ungrateful task.

4. To send before the time, or beforehand; hence, to cause to be before something else; to employ previously.
   • 1591, William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act V, scene ii]:

     the premised flames of the last day

   • if venesection and a cathartic be premised