pose
pronunciation
How to pronounce pose in British English:
UK [pəʊz]
How to pronounce pose in American English:
US [poʊz]
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- Noun:
- affected manners intended to impress others
- a posture assumed by models for photographic or artistic purposes
- a deliberate pretense or exaggerated display
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- Verb:
- introduce
- assume a posture as for artistic purposes
- pretend to be someone you are not; sometimes with fraudulent intentions
- behave affectedly or unnaturally in order to impress others
- put into a certain place or abstract location
- be a mystery or bewildering to
Word Origin
- pose
- pose: [16] Pose and pause come ultimately from the same source. This was late Latin pausāre ‘stop, pause’. In Vulgar Latin it came to be associated with pōnere ‘put’, and particularly, owing to the similarity of form, with its past participle positum (source of English position), and gradually started to take over its meaning. Hence Old French poser, source of the English word, meant ‘put, place’. The noun pose is a modern acquisition from French, dating from the early 19th century.=> pause
- pose (v.1)
- late 14c., posen, "suggest (something is so), suppose, assume; grant, concede," from Old French poser "put, place, propose," a term in debating, from Late Latin pausare "to halt, rest, cease, pause" (source also of Italian posare, Spanish posar; see pause (v.)). The Late Latin verb also had a transitive sense, "cause to pause or rest," and hence the Old French verb (in common with cognates in Spanish, Italian, Portuguese) acquired the sense of Latin ponere (past participle positus) "to put, place," by confusion of the similar stems. Meaning "put in a certain position" in English is from early 15c. Sense of "assume a certain attitude" is from 1840; the transitive sense (as an artist's model, etc.) is from 1859. Related: Posed; posing. One of the most remarkable facts in F[rench] etymology is the extraordinary substitution whereby the Low Lat. pausare came to mean 'to make to rest, to set,' and so usurped the place of the Lat. ponere, to place, set, with which it has no etymological connection. And this it did so effectually as to restrict the F. pondre, the true equivalent of Lat. ponere, to the sense of 'laying eggs;' whilst in all compounds it completely thrust it aside, so that compausare (i.e. F. composer) took the place of Lat. componere, and so on throughout. Hence the extraordinary result, that whilst the E. verbs compose, depose, impose, propose, &c. exactly represent in sense the Lat. componere, deponere, imponere, proponere, &c., we cannot derive the E. verbs from the Lat. ones since they have (as was said) no real etymological connection. [W.W. Skeat, "Etymological Dictionary of the English Language," 1898]
- pose (v.2)
- "to puzzle, confuse, perplex," 1590s, earlier "question, interrogate" (1520s), probably from Middle French poser "suppose, assume," from Old French poser "to put, place, set" (see pose (v.1)). Also in some cases a shortening of English appose "examine closely," and oppose. Related: Posed; posing.
- pose (n.)
- "act of posing the body," 1818, from pose (v.1), in a sense developed in the French cognate. Figuratively from 1884.
Example
- 1. Hamas 's rocket attacks pose an irreversible threat .
- 2. This pose was what berg hoped to attain .
- 3. Now they need to pose it again .
- 4. Would this pose an important threat to our recovery ?
- 5. His humility is only a pose .