Today's Word "putative"
Published in Vocabulary
putative \PYOO-tuh-tiv\ (adjective) - Commonly thought or deemed; supposed; reputed.
"Having washed her hands and face, tidied her hair, and powdered her nose, she set out to find her hostess, the putative mistress of this anything but ordinary household." -- Carola Dunn, 'Mistletoe and Murder'
Putative comes from Late Latin putativus, from the Latin putare, "to cleanse, to prune, to clear up, to consider, to reckon, to think." It is related to compute, "to calculate" (from com-, intensive prefix + putare); dispute, "to contend in argument" (from dis-, "apart" + putare); and reputation, "the estimation in which one is held" (from reputatio, from the past participle of reputare, "to think over," from re-, "again" + putare).
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