Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To state as an opinion.
  • intransitive verb To express an opinion.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To think; suppose.
  • To think; be of opinion that.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • verb To have an opinion; to judge; to think; to suppose.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun biochemistry Any of a class of organic compounds, derived from amino acids, found in some plant tumours
  • verb intransitive To have or express an opinion; to state as an opinion; to suppose, consider (that).
  • verb intransitive To give one's formal opinion (on or upon something).

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb expect, believe, or suppose
  • verb express one's opinion openly and without fear or hesitation

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English opinen, from Old French opiner, from Latin opīnārī, to suppose.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the Latin opīnor ("to hold as an opinion"), from *opinus ("thinking, expecting"), only in negative nec-opinus ("not expecting") and in-opinus ("not expected"); akin to optare ("to choose, desire"), and to apisci ("to obtain"); see optate and opt.

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Examples

Comments

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  • "Must we accept the view of Empedocles of Trinacria that the right ovary (the postmenstrual period, assert others) is responsible for the birth of males or are the too long neglected spermatozoa or nemasperms the differentiating factors or is it, as most embryologists incline to opine ..."

    Joyce, Ulysses, 14

    January 22, 2007

  • *eyeballs 'back-formation' tag.*

    Not a back-formation. Though the noun 'opinion' is much older in both English and French than the verb 'opine', the verb does come from a Classical Latin verb.

    January 14, 2009

  • Oops! That was me--got carried away, I suppose.

    January 14, 2009