Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To conclude from evidence or premises.
- v. To reason from circumstance; surmise: We can infer that his motive in publishing the diary was less than honorable.
- v. To lead to as a consequence or conclusion: "Socrates argued that a statue inferred the existence of a sculptor” ( Academy).
- v. To hint; imply.
- v. To draw inferences.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To bring in, on, or about; lead forward or advance; adduce.
- To form as an opinion or belief in consequence of something else observed or believed; derive as a fact or consequence, by reasoning of any kind; accept from evidence or premises; conclude.
- To bear presumption or proof of; imply.
- To conclude; reach a conclusion by reasoning.
Wiktionary
- v. To introduce (a subject) in speaking, writing etc.; to bring in. [16th-18th c.]
- v. To introduce (something) as a reasoned conclusion; to conclude by reasoning or deduction, as from premises or evidence. [from 16th c.]
- v. To draw a conclusion or inference by reasoning. [from 16th c.]
- v. To lead to (something) as a consequence; to imply. (Now often considered incorrect, especially with a person as subject.) [from 16th c.]
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To bring on; to induce; to occasion.
- v. To offer, as violence.
- v. To bring forward, or employ as an argument; to adduce; to allege; to offer.
- v. To derive by deduction or by induction; to conclude or surmise from facts or premises; to accept or derive, as a consequence, conclusion, or probability.
- v. To show; to manifest; to prove.
WordNet 3.0
- v. draw from specific cases for more general cases
- v. reason by deduction; establish by deduction
- v. guess correctly; solve by guessing
- v. conclude by reasoning; in logic
- v. believe to be the case
Etymologies
- Latin īnferre, to bring in, adduce : in-, in; see in-2 + ferre, to bear; see bher-1 in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“Who decides whether it's acceptable to end a sentence with a preposition or to use the word "infer" as a synonym for "imply"?”
“As one might infer from the title, the US President is involved.”
“It is simpleminded to infer from the rate at which intermarriage was increasing in one decade and the rate it was increasing in the subsequent decade that a fall off must reflect an unfavorable “trend” with respect to progress toward greater interracial harmony.”
“I cannot infer from the opinion in Green that this statute had even been enacted when Burns was decided in1872.”
The Volokh Conspiracy » At Least a Dozen Flag Desecration Prosecutions in the U.S. Since 1992
“Consequently, it is wrong to infer from the risk-free rate that there is no constraint on borrowing or that the rate of return on capital investment is negative.”
Liquidity Trap, II, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
“I infer from the question that this is purely and simply a coyote rifle.”
“Am I to infer from the video that Phil shot at those duck decoy with the slingshot!”
“Therefore, we can and should infer from the testimony and evidence surrounding Christopher Coates is that the lawsuit on the Panthers was a rush to judgment -- filed long before it was ripe, before a full investigation was completed, and contrary to longstanding practices whether the defendants be black or white.”
“And what we can also infer is that Christopher Coates, conservative ally of Schlozman and von Spakofsky, seeing that the Civil Rights Division would be returning to its historical mission of protecting the rights of minorities as well as white voters, was going to do one last thing as Section Chief to spit in the eye of the new Administration.”
“Perhaps inflation is the sort of thing that people don't talk to each other much about, and can't easily infer from the behavior of others.”
Inflationary Disagreement, Bryan Caplan | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘infer’.
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Academic Vocabulary
Use these and get promoted
abandon, abandonment, abnormally, abstract, abstraction, abstractly, abstracts, academia, academic, academically, academics, academies and 3092 more...
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4084 more...
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common UA vocab. in US
Interesting, there is a traditional vocabulary of an Ukrainian, that differs from vocabulary of average American. It would be nice to explore it.
jackdaw, incongruous, cassock, vivid, magpie, humdrum, amongst, wonder, wandering, wheedling, wheedle, osseous and 368 more...
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September/October 2011
excogitate, extrapolate, infer, imply, theorize, hypothesize, propose, propound, explicate, elucidate, prognostication, construe and 3 more...
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Pedantic distinctions
Put the two words next to each other. Pedants of the world pen your pet peeves here!
syntax, grammar, imply, infer, comprise, compose, effect, affect, insure, ensure, uninterested, disinterested and 21 more...
mollusque There's a list of back-formations. I don't think that "infer" is an example of one, though. Nov 16, 2008
dimã©lion i like words that seem to be snippets of longer, older words... not sure of why. Nov 16, 2008