as in ascribing
to explain (something) as being the result of something else
people often impute his silence to unfriendliness and not to the shyness it really represents
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Recent Examples of imputing
His definition of terrorism does not require imputing specific motives to protesters who own a gun or, like Renee Nicole Good, drive a car.
—
Jonathan Chait, The Atlantic, 25 Jan. 2026
That data is then preprocessed by imputing gaps, flagging outliers and normalizing signals.
—Nagesh Nama, Forbes.com, 10 Sep. 2025
Estimates are that some 35% of BLS data for its price reports is affected in some way by imputing.
—Jeff Cox, CNBC, 11 Aug. 2025
Jonathan Chait, The Atlantic, 25 Jan. 2026
That data is then preprocessed by imputing gaps, flagging outliers and normalizing signals.
—Nagesh Nama, Forbes.com, 10 Sep. 2025
Estimates are that some 35% of BLS data for its price reports is affected in some way by imputing.
—Jeff Cox, CNBC, 11 Aug. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for imputing
Verb
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The actress is cautious in ascribing too much power to her position.—
Jackson McHenry,
Vulture,
15 Dec. 2025
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Describing African resistance to slavery as a form of fugitive politics enables us, moreover, to confront accounts that, while acknowledging the reality of the resistance of the enslaved, end up depoliticizing it by ascribing it primarily to private emotions such as fear.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
5 Dec. 2025
Verb
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In 2021, San Diego prosecutors unsealed an indictment attributing an explosion of violence in Tijuana to a criminal cell known as Los Cabos, who allegedly acted as a brutal enforcement arm of the CJNG.—
Alexandra Mendoza,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
28 Feb. 2026
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In mid-February, Publishers Weekly reported that a hundred thousand copies of Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel had sold in the first two months of this year, compared with a hundred and eighty thousand total last year, attributing the increase to book clubs and influencers of all stripes embracing it.—
Radhika Jones,
New Yorker,
26 Feb. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Imputing.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/imputing. Accessed 8 Mar. 2026.
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