inferring

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle of infer.

   The detective spent hours inferring motives from a handful of scattered clues.

   Readers often risk inferring conclusions the author never intended.

   Note

   The -ing form does two jobs: it is a progressive participle (she was inferring) and a gerund (inferring motives takes patience). It carries every meaning of infer, and one needs care. Using inferring to mean "implying" is widely proscribed: a statement implies, and a listener infers. Older uses, such as inferring harm upon someone or inferring a subject into a speech, are now obsolete.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act of drawing a conclusion from evidence or reasoning rather than from a direct statement.

   The detective's inferring from the muddy footprints led to a quick arrest.

   Careful inferring lets researchers reach conclusions that the data alone cannot state.

   Similardeduction, reasoning, inference

   Note

   Philosophers count these acts. The plural inferrings appears in Jacob Joshua Ross's The Appeal to the Given (2015), beside intuitings, in a discussion of Ryle's claim that neither is a distinct mental process. Outside such writing, inference is the usual noun. Inferring keeps the stress on the act in progress rather than on the conclusion reached.

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