DEDUCTIVE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does deductive mean? 

• DEDUCTIVE (adjective)
  The adjective DEDUCTIVE has 2 senses:

1. relating to logical deduction

2. involving inferences from general principles

  Familiarity information: DEDUCTIVE used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DEDUCTIVE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Relating to logical deduction

Classified under:

Relational adjectives (pertainyms)

Context example:

deductive reasoning

Pertainym:

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

Derivation:

deduce (reason by deduction; establish by deduction)

deduce (conclude by reasoning; in logic)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Involving inferences from general principles

Similar:

deducible (capable of being deduced)

illative (expressing or preceding an inference)

illative; inferential (resembling or dependent on or arrived at by inference)

inferential (of reasoning; proceeding from general premisses to a necessary and specific conclusion)

Also:

analytic; analytical (of a proposition that is necessarily true independent of fact or experience)

a priori (involving deductive reasoning from a general principle to a necessary effect; not supported by fact)

Antonym:

inductive (of reasoning; proceeding from particular facts to a general conclusion)

Derivation:

deduce (reason by deduction; establish by deduction)

deduce (conclude by reasoning; in logic)

 Context examples 

And I hope, also, he continued, sitting down in the rocking-chair, that the cares of medical practice have not entirely obliterated the interest which you used to take in our little deductive problems.

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

Of these the latter may have afforded a finer field for an acute and original observer, but the other was so strange in its inception and so dramatic in its details that it may be the more worthy of being placed upon record, even if it gave my friend fewer openings for those deductive methods of reasoning by which he achieved such remarkable results.

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