DictionaryAI

induce

verb
in-DOOS/ɪnˈduːs/UKin-DYOOS/ɪnˈdjuːs/

Formsinduces, inducing, induced

7 meanings of induce

Practice

  1. 1
    verbtransitive
    To lead someone to act in a certain way by means of persuasion or influence.

    Advertisers use bright colors to induce shoppers to buy more.

    No amount of pleading could induce the judge to reconsider.

    Similarentice

    Oppositedissuade, deter, discourage

    Note

    Persuasion pictured as leading: the word goes back through Middle English enducen to Latin indūcere, "lead in, bring in," built on dūcō, "lead." The same verb sits inside adduce, deduce, produce and reduce. The usual pattern is a person followed by to and a verb, as in the American novelist Winston Churchill's The Celebrity (1897), where the hero "induced Mrs. Judge Short and two other ladies to call at Mohair."

  2. 2
    verbtransitive
    To cause something to happen or bring it about.

    Certain drugs induce nausea as a side effect.

    The film's slow pace induced a deep sense of calm.

    Similarprompt, trigger, stimulate, provoke, drive

    Oppositeprevent

    Note

    Here the object is the effect itself, not a person: opium induces sleep, and a plot summary induces giggle fits. Compare the persuading sense, which needs someone to persuade and a to-clause (induce him to sign). The effects are typically states of body or mind, such as sleep, nausea, calm or laughter, and the verb names what sets them going.

  3. 3
    verbtransitive
    To bring on the labor of a pregnant woman by medical means.

    The obstetrician chose to induce the patient two weeks past her due date.

    Hospitals sometimes induce labor when the mother's health is at risk.

    Note

    The obstetric use lets the woman herself be the object, not just the labor. Marina Hyde, writing in 2014, says she "got them to induce me at 39 weeks." Both patterns are normal: induce labor, or induce the patient. The personal form also turns readily into the passive (she was induced at 39 weeks), with the doctor left unnamed.

  4. 4
    verbtransitive
    To produce an electric current or magnetic state through the physical process of induction.

    A spinning magnet will induce a voltage across the coil's terminals.

    Engineers use changing fields to induce currents in the receiver.

    Similargenerate, produce

    Note

    Physics uses the verb for an effect produced without contact, through the process the noun induction names. What does the inducing is change. A moving magnet or a varying field induces a voltage or current in a nearby conductor, while a steady one induces nothing. The past participle works as a technical adjective: an induced current, an induced magnetic state.

  5. 5
    verbtransitive
    To infer a general principle by reasoning from particular observations or cases.

    From repeated trials, researchers induce the underlying principle.

    Early naturalists induced general laws from careful observation of many species.

    Similarinfer, derive

    Oppositededuce

    Note

    In logic this is the reverse of deduce. Reasoning runs from particular cases up to a general rule, rather than from a rule down to the cases. The premises support the conclusion without guaranteeing it, so an induced law stays open to the next counterexample. Both verbs share the Latin root for "lead" that runs through the persuading sense.

Less common meanings

  1. 6
    verbobsoletetransitive
    To bring in or introduce a person or thing into a place or assembly.
    Note

    The Latin meaning carried straight into English, and now lost: indūcere was literally "lead in, bring in," the origin traced under the persuading sense. A reader of older texts who meets someone induced into a room should hear introduced or ushered in. In modern writing, use those words instead, because the old sense would only be read as persuasion.

  2. 7
    verbobsoletetransitive
    To draw something on or lay it upon a surface.
    Note

    A second obsolete use, physical rather than social: drawing something on, or laying it over a surface, as one draws on a garment or lays on a covering. It belongs to older writing only. When it turns up there, read it as "put on" or "lay upon." Today those plain verbs, or draw on itself, do the work.

Practice

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Origin

From Middle English enducen, borrowed from Latin indūcere ("lead in, bring in, introduce"), formed from in plus dūcō ("lead, conduct"). It is a doublet of endue.