suspicion

Etymology

From Middle English suspecioun, borrowed from Latin suspīciō, suspīciōnem, from suspicere, from sub- (“up to”) with specere (“to look at”). Perhaps partly through the influence of Old French sospeçon (or rather the Anglo-Norman form suspecioun). Equivalent to suspect + -ion.

noun

1. The act of suspecting something or someone, especially of something wrong.
   […]purſued his vnneighbourly purpoſe in ſuch ſort: that hee being the ſtronger perſwader, and ſhe (belike) too credulous in beleeuing or elſe ouer-feeble in reſiſting, from priuate imparlance, they fell to action; and continued their cloſe fight a long while together, vnſeene and vvithout ſuſpition, no doubt to their equall ioy and contentment. 1620, Giovanni Bocaccio, translated by John Florio, The Decameron, Containing an Hundred Pleaſant Nouels: Wittily Diſcourſed, Betweene Seuen Honourable Ladies, and Three Noble Gentlemen, Isaac Iaggard, Nouell 8, The Eighth Day
   His unruly hair was slicked down with water, and as Jessamy introduced him to Miss Brindle his face assumed a cherubic innocence which would immediately have aroused the suspicions of anyone who knew him. 1967, Barbara Sleigh, Jessamy, Sevenoaks, Kent: Bloomsbury, published 1993, page 96
   Given these entrenched ideological assumptions about the colonial order, it is no wonder that the state and those groups with an interest in the status quo viewed with suspicion and hostility any challenges to the fixed and "natural" boundaries between different sorts of people. 2009, Andrew B. Fisher, Matthew O'Hara, “Forward”, in Andrew B. Fisher, Matthew O'Hara, editors, Imperial Subjects: Race and Identity in Colonial Latin America, page 4
2. The condition of being suspected.
3. Uncertainty, doubt.
4. A trace, or slight indication.
   a suspicion of a smile
   The features are mild but expressive, with just a suspicion[…]of saturnine or sarcastic humor. 1879, Adolphus William Ward, Chaucer
5. The imagining of something without evidence.

verb

1. (nonstandard, dialect) To suspect; to have suspicions.
   Mulvaney continued— "Whin I was full awake the palanquin was set down in a street, I suspicioned, for I cud hear people passin' an' talkin'. But I knew well I was far from home. […] 1891, Rudyard Kipling, “The Incarnation of Krishna Mulvaney”, in Life's Handicap
   "I've been suspicioning here was where they got their information right along," the sheriff commented, and slipped the handcuffs on the landlord. 2012, B. M. Bower, Cow-Country, page 195