supposed to

From supposed and to, with fusion of /zdt/ to /s(t)t/ by regressive assimilation. Compare the devoicing in used to and have to/has to.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /səˈpəʊs(t) ˌtuː/

• Audio (Southern England):

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• (General American) IPA^(key): /səˈpoʊs(t) ˌtu/ (stressed)

• Audio (US); “be supposed to”:

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• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /səˈpəʊs tə/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /səˈpoʊs tə/ (unstressed)

supposed to (not comparable)

1. (idiomatic, passive voice)^[1][2] Expected to.
   1. Required to, obliged to, ought to.

      I am supposed to report to the police every week.

      Paul is supposed to call his mother every day.

      The phone is supposed to come with a manual.

      • a. 1627 (date written), Francis Bacon, “A.D. 1612. Ætat. 52.”, in James Spedding, editor, The Works of Francis Bacon, […]: The Letters and the Life of Francis Bacon […], volume IV, London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, published 1858, →OCLC, page 287:

        [I]t behoveth to peruse […] how much the king hath more now when the whole benefit is supposed to go to him, than he had when three parts of the benefit went to the committee.

      • 2011, Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash, Penguin Books, →ISBN, →OCLC, →OL, page 161:

        A computer voice tells her that she is supposed to make a pickup in Griffith Park and deliver it to a Reverend Wayne's Pearly Gates franchise in Van Nuys.

   2. (in the negative, preceded by "not") Permitted to.

      You are not supposed to smoke in the restaurant.

      [Note: this means that it is against the rules (or societal expectations) to smoke.]

   3. (in interrogative or similar situations) Able to, capable of (used to indicate that an expectation is impossible or unreasonable in the context).

      How am I supposed to work in all this racket?

      What was he supposed to do—just sit there and do nothing?

   4. Believed to; generally considered to; considered likely to.

      It's supposed to rain.

      The movie is supposed to be good.

      The thief is supposed to be hiding in the forest.

      • 1848, J. S. Skinner & Son, editor, The Plough, The Loom and the Anvil‎^[1], volume I, Philadelphia: J. S. Skinner & Son, page 137:

        The great use of coffee in France is supposed to have abated the prevalency of the gravel, for where coffee is used as a constant beverage, the gravel and the gout are scarcely known.

   5. Intended to; meant to.

      The phone is supposed to save us time.

      Is that supposed to be funny?

      • 1923, “Statement of Mr. W. Pearce Rayner, Chairman Committee on Traffic and Public Safety, of the Washington Board of Trade”, in Traffic Conditions in the District of Columbia, Washington: Government Printing Office, page 168:

        Mr. Rayner. On some streets they are required to park parallel and within 4 inches of the curbstone. That is called parallel parking. But sometimes a driver, instead of hunting a place big enough, will just head into a place supposed to be reserved for parallel parking.

      • 2019, Robert Stevens, “Debate: Will Bakkt send Bitcoin's price skyrocketing?”, in Decrypt‎^[2]:

        Bitcoin, supposed to be the decentralized currency of the internet, is reigned back by regulation.

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see supposed,‎ to.

   The movie is supposed to be good.

   The thief is supposed to be hiding in the forest.

   • 1782, Thomas Rowley, Poems, Supposed to Have Been Written at Bristol, page 323:

     […] the preſent Ballad of Chevy Chace is ſuppoſed to be moderniſed from the ancient Battle of Otterburn, or Prior’s Henry and Emma, from the Song of the Nut-brown Maid.

   • 1896, John Fulton, Memoirs of Frederick A.P. Barnard, page 353:

     Incidents of which the causes are obscure or unperceived are ascribed to agencies and influences which are supposed to control events and affect human happiness, and which are supposed to be at the same time intelligent or malign.

• Functions as a passive participial adjective, historically derived from the past participle of suppose, and behaves similarly to a passive/past participle in terms of grammar. Thus, it is typically preceded by a form of be, but not invariably so; see Citations:supposed to.
• Always followed by the infinitive form of a verb, unless this is omitted by ellipsis. Historically, the construction consisted of supposed followed by a to-infinitive.
• Often implies that the opposite is a strong possibility.
• There is not always a clear distinction between this expression and the past participle of the ordinary verb suppose. The final /z/ of the past participle is never phonemically devoiced to /s/ when it is used non-figuratively; therefore, the voiceless pronunciation is unique to the idiomatic inseparable term. In contrast, some speakers may use the voiced pronunciation /səˈpəʊzd/ for idiomatic as well as non-idiomatic uses, so the use of a pronunciation with /z/ is not necessarily an unambiguous sign of non-figurative usage. The distinction in meaning is subtle in the case of the sense "considered to" or "believed to". For example, "The thief is supposed to be hiding the forest" is grammatical as an ordinary passive construction with the separable past participle, in which case it must be pronounced with /səˈpəʊzd/, and means "People suppose that the thief is hiding in the forest". It is also grammatical with the idiomatic inseparable term "supposed to", in which case it may be pronounced with devoicing (/səˈpoʊs tə/), and means something more like "It is expected that the thief is hiding in the forest" or "The thief should be/ought to be hiding in the forest" (with the epistemic rather than deontic senses of "should" and "ought": the focus in this case may be on the existence of good reasons for expecting this, rather than on the existence of people who believe that this is the case.)

• (required): meant to (UK)

• asposed to (childish synonym)

• “be supposed to”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.