Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The act or process of deriving logical conclusions from premises known or assumed to be true.
- noun The act of reasoning from factual knowledge or evidence.
- noun Something inferred.
- noun Usage Problem A hint or suggestion.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The formation of a belief or opinion, not as directly observed, but as constrained by observations made of other matters or by beliefs already adopted; the system of propositions or judgments connected together by such an act in a syllogism—namely, the premises, or the judgment or judgments which act as causes, and the conclusion, or the judgment which results as an effect; also, the belief so produced.
- noun Reasoning from effect to cause; reasoning from signs; conjecture from premises or criteria; hypothesis.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The act or process of inferring by deduction or induction.
- noun That which inferred; a truth or proposition drawn from another which is admitted or supposed to be true; a conclusion; a deduction.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun uncountable The act or process of
inferring bydeduction orinduction . - noun countable That which is
inferred ; a truth or proposition drawn from another which is admitted or supposed to be true; aconclusion ; a deduction.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun the reasoning involved in drawing a conclusion or making a logical judgment on the basis of circumstantial evidence and prior conclusions rather than on the basis of direct observation
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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Strictly speaking, the term inference, as applied to a product of thought, includes both the antecedent and consequent: but it is often used for the consequent to the exclusion of the antecedent.
Deductive Logic St. George William Joseph Stock
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In that sense of the term inference in which it is confined to the consequent, it may be said that --
Deductive Logic St. George William Joseph Stock
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He concludes this discourse of the vanity of the creature with this plain inference from the whole, That it is folly to think of making up
Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume III (Job to Song of Solomon) 1721
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Whilst the premise of this inference is a negative evaluative statement, the conclusion is a proscriptive statement.
Archive 2009-03-01 Gordon McCabe 2009
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But beyond the borders of this experience, to a single step of inference, or what they call inference, both the religions of science and of culture obstinately refuse to go.
Christian Doctrine of Sin 1823-1886 1876
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When Mom takes up a technology, be it Twitter (check the story, not the headline), social networking, texting or even (sorry Om) wireless network cards, the inference is that the technology has moved not just out of the early adopter crowd, but into the realm of everyone.
Let’s Stop Confusing Moms With Technology-Fearing Simpletons 2009
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A clear inference is that most of the employees are not classroom teachers.
The Free-Market Agenda, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009
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June 08, 2009 at 1: 22 AM i'm absolutely loving Sockso right now, the web inference is tremendous and it zips my albums for remote download, but I'll try this out as well on my backup pc.
PulpTunes Offers Dead Simple iTunes Streaming | Lifehacker Australia 2009
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The inference is that parents who spank are slobbering, snapping beasts living on the edge of insanity, ready at the slightest provocation to beat their kids.
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My inference is looking pretty solid at this point.
Matthew Yglesias » Out of the Insane Asylum, and Into the Prison 2009
corinne commented on the word inference
A conclusion that is based on and extends an observation. This can be of a generalizing or explanatory type.
Eggen PD, Kauchak DP. Strategies for Teachers: Teaching Content and Thinking Skills
April 22, 2007