The sense "a piece of real estate" arose from the misinterpretation of the word by property owners while readingtitle deeds where the word was used with the legal sense.
1667, attributed toRichard Allestree,The Causes of the Decay of Christian Piety.[…], London:[…] R. Norton for T. Garthwait,[…],→OCLC:
While thepremises stand firm, 'tis impossible to shake the conclusion.
(usually in theplural,law) Matters previously stated or set forth; especially, that part in the beginning of a deed, the office of which is to express the grantor and grantee, and the land or thing granted or conveyed, and all that precedes thehabendum; the thing demised or granted.
Nothing was too small to receive attention, if a supervising eye could suggest improvements likely to conduce to the common welfare. Mr. Gordon Burnage, for instance, personally visited dust-bins and backpremises, accompanied by a sort of village bailiff, going his round like a commanding officer doing billets.
(authorship) The fundamental concept that drives the plot of afilm or otherstory.
2021 September 15, Laura Martin, “How talent shows became TV's most bizarre programmes”, inBBC[1]:
In 1949, the simplepremise of discovering ordinary people who have hidden, extraordinary talents came to prominence in the UK with Opportunity Knocks, which started out as a nationwide touring radio show, before moving onto TV in 1956.
Ipremise these particulars that the reader may know that I enter upon it as a very ungrateful task.
The spelling has been modernized.
1749,Henry Fielding,The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling:
Havingpremised thus much, we will now detain those who like our bill of fare no longer from their diet, and shall proceed directly to serve up the first course of our history for their entertainment.
To send before the time, or beforehand; hence, to cause to be before something else; to employ previously.
if venesection can be previously performed, even to but few ounces, the effect of the opium is much more certain; and still more so, if there be time topremise a brisk cathartic, or even an emetic
