INDUCEMENT

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does inducement mean? 

• INDUCEMENT (noun)
  The noun INDUCEMENT has 2 senses:

1. a positive motivational influence

2. act of bringing about a desired result

  Familiarity information: INDUCEMENT used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• INDUCEMENT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A positive motivational influence

Classified under:

Nouns denoting goals

Synonyms:

incentive; inducement; motivator

Hypernyms ("inducement" is a kind of...):

rational motive (a motive that can be defended by reasoning or logical argument)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "inducement"):

dynamic; moral force (an efficient incentive)

Derivation:

induce (cause to do; cause to act in a specified manner)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Act of bringing about a desired result

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

inducement; inducing

Context example:

inducement of sleep

Hypernyms ("inducement" is a kind of...):

causation; causing (the act of causing something to happen)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "inducement"):

corruption (inducement (as of a public official) by improper means (as bribery) to violate duty (as by commiting a felony))

Derivation:

induce (cause to arise)

 Context examples 

Something of that nature would be particularly desirable for me, as an inducement to keep me in practice; for married women, you know—there is a sad story against them, in general.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

He acknowledged no such inducement, and his sister ought to have given him credit for better feelings than her own.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

I have many inducements to do so.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Nobody supposes that you were his first inducement.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Steerforth laughed to that degree, that it was impossible for me to help laughing too; though I am not sure I should have done so, but for this inducement.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Mr. Wickham's chief object was unquestionably my sister's fortune, which is thirty thousand pounds; but I cannot help supposing that the hope of revenging himself on me was a strong inducement.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Had he NOT told me as an inducement that you and your sister were to be there, I should have felt it too certain a thing, to trust myself near him.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Strange as my circumstances were, the terms of this debate are as old and commonplace as man; much the same inducements and alarms cast the die for any tempted and trembling sinner; and it fell out with me, as it falls with so vast a majority of my fellows, that I chose the better part and was found wanting in the strength to keep to it.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

You are in a land which offers such an inducement to the ambitious naturalist as none ever has since the world began, and you suggest leaving it before we have acquired more than the most superficial knowledge of it or of its contents.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

With you, it is not, How is such a one likely to be influenced, What is the inducement most likely to act upon such a person's feelings, age, situation, and probable habits of life considered—but, How should I be influenced, What would be my inducement in acting so and so?

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)