| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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| infer |
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| SYLLABICATION: | in·fer |
| PRONUNCIATION: |   n-fûr |
| VERB: | Inflected forms: in·ferred, in·fer·ring, in·fers
| | TRANSITIVE VERB: | 1. To conclude from evidence or premises. 2. To reason from circumstance; surmise: We can infer that his motive in publishing the diary was less than honorable. 3. To lead to as a consequence or conclusion: “Socrates argued that a statue inferred the existence of a sculptor” (Academy). 4. To hint; imply. | | INTRANSITIVE VERB: | To draw inferences. | | ETYMOLOGY: | Latin  nferre, to bring in, adduce : in-, in; see in–2 + ferre, to bear; see bher-1 in Appendix I. | | OTHER FORMS: | in·fera·ble —ADJECTIVE
in·fera·bly —ADVERB
in·ferrer —NOUN
| | USAGE NOTE: | Infer is sometimes confused with imply, but the distinction is a useful one. When we say that a speaker or sentence implies something, we mean that it is conveyed or suggested without being stated outright: When the mayor said that she would not rule out a business tax increase, she implied (not inferred) that some taxes might be raised. Inference, on the other hand, is the activity performed by a reader or interpreter in drawing conclusions that are not explicit in what is said: When the mayor said that she would not rule out a tax increase, we inferred that she had been consulting with some new financial advisers, since her old advisers were in favor of tax reductions.
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| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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