DEDUCE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does deduce mean? 

• DEDUCE (verb)
  The verb DEDUCE has 2 senses:

1. reason by deduction; establish by deduction

2. conclude by reasoning; in logic

  Familiarity information: DEDUCE used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DEDUCE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they deduce    ... he / she / it deduces   
Past simple: deduced   
Past participle: deduced   
-ing form: deducing   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Reason by deduction; establish by deduction

Classified under:

Verbs of thinking, judging, analyzing, doubting

Synonyms:

deduce; deduct; derive; infer

Hypernyms (to "deduce" is one way to...):

conclude; reason; reason out (decide by reasoning; draw or come to a conclusion)

Domain category:

logic; logical system; system of logic (a system of reasoning)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "deduce"):

extrapolate (gain knowledge of (an area not known or experienced) by extrapolating)

surmise (infer from incomplete evidence)

elicit (derive by reason)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s that CLAUSE

Derivation:

deduction (reasoning from the general to the particular (or from cause to effect))

deductive (involving inferences from general principles)

deductive (relating to logical deduction)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Conclude by reasoning; in logic

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Synonyms:

deduce; infer

Hypernyms (to "deduce" is one way to...):

conclude; reason; reason out (decide by reasoning; draw or come to a conclusion)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s that CLAUSE

Derivation:

deducible (capable of being deduced)

deduction (reasoning from the general to the particular (or from cause to effect))

deductive (involving inferences from general principles)

deductive (relating to logical deduction)

 Context examples 

‘Come, now, Mr. Holmes,’ said he, laughing good-humoredly. ‘I’m an excellent subject, if you can deduce anything from me.’

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

How did you deduce the select?

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Scientists deduce this mineral was deposited as water moved through fractures on Endeavour's rim.

(Aluminum-Bearing Site on Mars Draws NASA Visitor, NASA)

Using numerical simulations, they deduced that Hygiea’s spherical shape and large family of asteroids are likely the result of a major head-on collision with a large projectile of diameter between 75 and 150 km.

(ESO Telescope Reveals What Could be the Smallest Dwarf Planet Yet in the Solar System, ESO)

They also deduced that it has a diameter 1.4 times larger than the Earth — almost 18,000 kilometers.

(Super-Earth in Habitable Zone, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Astronomers deduced the amount of light absorbed by the atmosphere in infrared light.

('Cotton Candy' Planet Mysteries Unravel in New Hubble Observations, NASA)

“What do I deduce from this?”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

It would not require a Sherlock Holmes to deduce that you have been cooking over a camp-fire, to say nothing of trying out seal-blubber.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

From the mass spectrum produced, the atomic weight of the particle can be deduced.

(Mass Spectrometry, NCI Thesaurus)

They then used computer algorithms and image processing software to deduce the locations of the shock waves based on distortions of the background pattern—an approach called the background-oriented schlieren technique.

(Seeing Shock Waves, EARTH OBSERVATORY)