deduce

verb de·duce \ di-ˈdüs , dē- ; chiefly British -ˈdyüs \

|Updated on: 16 Jun 2018

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Examples: deduce in a Sentence

Definition of deduce

deduced; deducing

transitive verb

1 : to determine by reasoning or deduction

deduce the age of ancient artifacts

She deduced, from the fur stuck to his clothes, that he owned a cat.

; specifically, philosophy : to infer (see infer 1) from a general principle

2 : to trace the course of

deduce their lineage

—

deducible

play \-ˈd(y)ü-sə-bəl\ adjective

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Examples of deduce in a Sentence

I can deduce from the simple observation of your behavior that you're trying to hide something from me.

Recent Examples of deduce from the Web

Still, when Italy can borrow as cheaply as America, the world must be in vastly better shape than rate-doomers deduce.

— ken fisher, USA TODAY, "Investors: Why you shouldn't worry that rates will rise," 10 June 2018
Sources: Yew-Thong Leong, Ryerson University (renderings); Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies (photos) Lacking basic information, the crew has had to deduce Wright’s intentions.

— vipal monga, WSJ, "The Quest to Recover a Lost Frank Lloyd Wright Building," 30 May 2018
Facebook fired the unnamed engineer after his would-be date shared his texts with a security researcher who deduced his identity and reported him to the company.

— jeff john roberts, Fortune, "Facebook, Uber and the Trouble With "God View"," 12 May 2018
From various measurements, cosmologists have deduced that just 5% of the mass and energy of the cosmos is ordinary matter like that in stars and planets.

— adrian cho, Science | AAAS, "Galaxy simulations are at last matching reality—and producing surprising insights into cosmic evolution," 30 May 2018
One potential solution—developed by Elitzur’s former mentor, Israeli physicist Yakir Aharonov, now at Chapman University, and his collaborators—suggests a way to deduce something about quantum particles before measuring them.

— philip ball, Scientific American, "Quantum Physics May Be Even Spookier Than You Think," 21 May 2018
As a result of her silence, we are left to deduce meaning from her physical image.

— salamishah tillet, New York Times, "Meghan Markle and the Bicultural Blackness of the Royal Wedding," 20 May 2018
Other mountain lion crossings have been deduced by mapping the DNA of the local population.

— joseph serna, www.latimes.com, "Mountain lions are being killed on freeways and weakened by inbreeding. Researchers have a solution," 16 May 2018
The timing side channels allow the attacks to deduce information about the bits' location in the module.

— dan goodin, Ars Technica, "Drive-by Rowhammer attack uses GPU to compromise an Android phone," 3 May 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'deduce.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Origin and Etymology of deduce

Middle English, from Latin deducere, literally, to lead away, from de- + ducere to lead — more at ¹tow

NEW! Time Traveler

First Known Use: 15th century

in the meaning defined at sense 1

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deduce Synonyms

Synonyms

conclude, decide, derive, extrapolate, gather, infer, judge, make out, reason, understand;

Related Words

assume, suppose;

conjecture, guess, speculate, surmise;

construe, interpret, read;

contemplate, philosophize, rationalize, think;

ascertain, dope (out), find out;

Phrases

draw a conclusion;

Synonym Discussion of deduce

infer, deduce, conclude, judge, gather mean to arrive at a mental conclusion. infer implies arriving at a conclusion by reasoning from evidence; if the evidence is slight, the term comes close to surmise.