different between notion vs suspicion

English

Etymology

From Latin n?ti? (“a becoming acquainted, a taking cognizance, an examination, an investigation, a conception, idea, notion”), from n?scere (“to know”). Compare French notion. See know.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?n????n/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?no???n/
• Rhymes: -????n

Noun

notion (plural notions)

1. Mental apprehension of whatever may be known, thought, or imagined; idea, concept.

   • What hath been generally agreed on, I content myself to assume under the notion of principles.

   • 1705-1715', George Cheyne, The Philosophical Principles of Religion Natural and Revealed

     there are few that agree in their Notions about them:.

   • 1725, Isaac Watts, Logick, or The Right Use of Reason in the Enquiry After Truth With a Variety of Rules to Guard

     That notion of hunger, cold, sound, color, thought, wish, or fear which is in the mind, is called the "idea" of hunger, cold, etc.

   • Notion, again, signifies either the act of apprehending, signalizing, that is, the remarking or taking note of, the various notes, marks, or characters of an object which its qualities afford, or the result of that act.

2. A sentiment; an opinion.
   • December 2, 1832, John Henry Newman, Wilfulness, the Sin of Saul

     A perverse will easily collects together a system of notions to justify itself in its obliquity.
3. (obsolete) Sense; mind.
4. (colloquial) An invention; an ingenious device; a knickknack.

5. Any small article used in sewing and haberdashery, either for attachment to garments or as a tool, such as a button, zipper, or thimble.
6. (colloquial) Inclination; intention; disposition.

Translations

See also

• concept
• conception
• meaning

Further reading

• notion in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• notion in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• notion on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin n?ti?, n?ti?nem.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /n?.sj??/

Noun

notion f (plural notions)

1. notion

Further reading

• “notion” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

English

Alternative forms

• suspition (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English [Term?], borrowed from Latin suspici?, suspici?nem, from suspicere, from sub- (“up to”) with specere (“to look at”). Perhaps partly through the influence of Old French sospeçon (or rather the Anglo-Norman form suspecioun).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /s?.?sp?.??n/
• Rhymes: -???n

Noun

suspicion (countable and uncountable, plural suspicions)

2. The act of suspecting something or someone, especially of something wrong.
3. The condition of being suspected.
4. Uncertainty, doubt.

   • In former days every tavern of repute kept such a room for its own select circle, a club, or society, of habitués, who met every evening, for a pipe and a cheerful glass. […] Strangers might enter the room, but they were made to feel that they were there on sufferance: they were received with distance and suspicion.

5. A trace, or slight indication.
   • 1879, Adolphus William Ward, Chaucer

     The features are mild but expressive, with just a suspicion […] of saturnine or sarcastic humor.

6. The imagining of something without evidence.

Derived terms

• suspicious
• suspect
• sneaking suspicion

Translations

Verb

suspicion (third-person singular simple present suspicions, present participle suspicioning, simple past and past participle suspicioned)

1. (nonstandard, dialect) To suspect; to have suspicions.

   • Mulvaney continued— "Whin I was full awake the palanquin was set down in a street, I suspicioned, for I cud hear people passin' an' talkin'. But I knew well I was far from home. […]

   • 2012, B. M. Bower, Cow-Country (page 195)

     "I've been suspicioning here was where they got their information right along," the sheriff commented, and slipped the handcuffs on the landlord.

Trivia

One of three common words ending in -cion, which are coercion, scion, and suspicion.

References

• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “suspicion”, in Online Etymology Dictionary

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin suspici?, suspici?nem. Confer soupçon, derived from a related formation but not an actual doublet.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sys.pi.sj??/

Noun

suspicion f (plural suspicions)

1. suspicion

Synonyms

• soupçon