Assertion

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /əˈsɜːʃən/

Definitions

1. A confident statement or claim presented as fact without providing proof or evidence
2. A declaration made confidently that is presented as a truth, irrespective of whether any proof is offered or not
3. A confident proclamation or declaration posited as truth, lacking supporting evidence or justification in its presentation

Etymology: Latin "asserere" meant to claim or lay hold of something, and its literal sense was "to join to oneself" or to take possession of, from "ad" ("to") and "serere" ("to join, bind"). That physical grasping sense gave way over time to the idea of claiming something as true, which is where the English word's meaning sits today. The Latin noun "assertio" carried the sense of a formal claim or affirmation, and English borrowed it through Middle English as "assercioun" before the spelling settled into its modern form. The word's modern sense is therefore a mental version of the original action: to assert something is to stake a claim on it, to put your position down as if it were ground you owned. That is why an assertion can be made without any evidence at all. The word describes the act of claiming, not the act of proving, and the grip it takes on a statement is entirely the speaker's own.

Synonyms: statement, claim

Antonyms: denial