deduce

2 definitions • 3 examples

to reach an answer or a decision by thinking carefully about the known facts:

deduce something from something We cannot deduce very much from these figures.

[ + that ] The police have deduced that he must have left his apartment yesterday evening.

to reach an answer by thinking about a general truth and its relationship to a specific situation:

[ + question word ] In an attempt to deduce what happened to the jet, investigators are looking at other similar planes.