English Dictionary

PRESUMPTUOUS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does presumptuous mean? 

PRESUMPTUOUS (adjective)
  The adjective PRESUMPTUOUS has 1 sense:

1. excessively forwardplay

  Familiarity information: PRESUMPTUOUS used as an adjective is very rare.


 Dictionary entry details 


PRESUMPTUOUS (adjective)


Sense 1

Meaning:

Excessively forward

Synonyms:

assuming; assumptive; presumptuous

Context example:

the duchess would not put up with presumptuous servants

Similar:

forward (used of temperament or behavior; lacking restraint or modesty)

Derivation:

presumption (a kind of discourtesy in the form of an act of presuming)

presumption; presumptuousness (audacious (even arrogant) behavior that you have no right to)


 Context examples 


“Dear Agnes,” I said, it is presumptuous for me, who am so poor in all in which you are so rich—goodness, resolution, all noble qualities—to doubt or direct you; but you know how much I love you, and how much I owe you.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Indeed I must confess, that as to the people of Lilliput, Brobdingrag (for so the word should have been spelt, and not erroneously Brobdingnag), and Laputa, I have never yet heard of any Yahoo so presumptuous as to dispute their being, or the facts I have related concerning them; because the truth immediately strikes every reader with conviction.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Harriet was a little distressed—did look a little foolish at first: but having once owned that she had been presumptuous and silly, and self-deceived, before, her pain and confusion seemed to die away with the words, and leave her without a care for the past, and with the fullest exultation in the present and future; for, as to her friend's approbation, Emma had instantly removed every fear of that nature, by meeting her with the most unqualified congratulations.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Go on. He won't annoy you. I think he realizes that his presumptuous little flirtation is over.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)



 Learn English with... Proverbs 
"Rolling stone gathers no moss." (English proverb)

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"If you own two houses, it's raining in one of them." (Corsican proverb)



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