propound
Americanverb (used with object)
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propounds,
present (3rd person singular)
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propounded,
past participle, past
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propounding
present participle
verb
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to suggest or put forward for consideration
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English law
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to produce (a will or similar instrument) to the proper court or authority in order for its validity to be established
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(of an executor) to bring (an action to obtain probate) in solemn form
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Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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propoundsimple
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propoundssimple
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have propoundedperfect
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has propoundedperfect
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am propoundingprogressive
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are propoundingprogressive
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is propoundingprogressive
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have been propoundingperfect progressive
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has been propoundingperfect progressive
Past
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propoundedsimple
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had propoundedperfect
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was propoundingprogressive
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were propoundingprogressive
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had been propoundingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of propound
1545–55; later variant of Middle English propone ( see propone) < Latin prōpōnere to set forth, equivalent to prō- pro- 1 + pōnere to put, place, set. See compound 1, expound
Explanation
When you propound an idea, you put it forward. If you tell your teacher that listening to music in class would help students do their work, then you propound the idea that music can be a motivator. The word propound is a little bit formal and often used in reference to something that’s weighty and serious. Beloved by academics of all types, you might hear someone propound, say, his theory of logocentrism in the works of Jacques Derrida. Don’t worry: you don’t need to understand the theory, you just need to understand that propound means he’s putting it out there.
Vocabulary lists containing propound
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954)
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The Importance of Being Earnest
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The Turn of the Screw
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
"And no matter what you may think, Mr. Kennedy. And I revere your name. You're not here to propound your case for censorship," Connolly said.
From Salon ● Jul. 20, 2023
But the plays don’t hector or propound moral lessons.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 6, 2022
“We can’t wait to propound searing questions about the finances of these individuals and these groups.”
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 14, 2021
Leaders like FDR, JFK, Wałęsa, and Nehru demonstrated that democrats can propound powerful liberal-national narratives.
From Slate ● Jul. 3, 2020
I was not free from apprehension that he would come back to propound through the gate, “And sixteen?”
From "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens
After all, each house adapts rules to its own purposes; “Chicago” propounds rules with a soft authority, a gentle firmness.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 12, 2017
Joe Haines, who was press secretary to Harold Wilson, the last-but-one Labour leader to win a majority, propounds a fourth, better option.
From Economist ● Jan. 14, 2016
Whereas once I lauded this program, now I am absolutely disgusted by the moral nihilism it propounds.
From Time ● Apr. 1, 2013
The Conclusion to his book of Renaissance essays, published in 1873, was seized on for the ardour with which Pater propounds a philosophy of beauty.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 26, 2011
Some advise that enlightenment should begin with our answers to the first questions the child propounds upon the subject; others contend that it is better to wait till it is somewhat older than this.
From The Sexual Life of the Child by Paul, Eden
Many economists who propounded the inevitability of business cycles, including Kuznets, Hayek, Paul Samuelson and James Tobin, have won Nobel Prizes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 5, 2026
And it ends with one of them stepping on a butterfly and changing the course of history — 20 years before the chaos theoretician Edward Norton Lorenz propounded the “butterfly effect.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 11, 2023
Yet "futurist" also refers to a specific movement from 20th century history, one that in crucial ways is both similar to and different from the supposed "futurism" propounded by the likes of Musk and Thiel.
From Salon ● Nov. 12, 2022
Before sinking into insanity, Friedrich Nietzsche propounded a theory that still reverberates in the intelligentsia: There are no “facts,” “only interpretations.”
From Washington Post ● Mar. 25, 2022
The theory Hapgood alluded to was one first propounded in 1908 by an amateur American geologist named Frank Bursley Taylor.
From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson
Even more infuriating, however, is a pervasive sense of arrogance and disorder, which now includes public officials and others propounding aggressively, insultingly strange vocabularies.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 20, 2021
According to Magnet, Thomas is an intellectual heavyweight propounding the farsighted vision that “there is no government solution.”
From New York Times ● Oct. 4, 2019
Revisionist takes on characters have a pleasing audacity, but Morrison isn't so much propounding a thesis as approaching a classic with a different level of political awareness.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 9, 2015
The data, Jefferson showed, simply didn’t support this the dangerous theory Buffon was propounding.
From Slate ● Sep. 12, 2012
He was given to geometry also, propounding occasionally impossible problems in the Educational Times, but ornithology was his forte.
From The Wonderful Visit by Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
