induce
Americanverb (used with object)
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induces,
present (3rd person singular)
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induced,
past participle, past
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inducing
present participle
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to lead or move by persuasion or influence, as to some action or state of mind.
to induce a person to buy a raffle ticket.
- Antonyms:
- dissuade
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to bring about, produce, or cause.
That medicine will induce sleep.
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Physics. to produce (an electric current) by induction.
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Logic. to assert or establish (a proposition about a class of phenomena) on the basis of observations on a number of particular facts.
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Genetics. to increase expression of (a gene) by inactivating a negative control system or activating a positive control system; derepress.
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Biochemistry. to stimulate the synthesis of (a protein, especially an enzyme) by increasing gene transcription.
verb
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(often foll by an infinitive) to persuade or use influence on
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to cause or bring about
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med to initiate or hasten (labour), as by administering a drug to stimulate uterine contractions
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obsolete logic to assert or establish (a general proposition, hypothesis, etc) by induction
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to produce (an electromotive force or electrical current) by induction
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to transmit (magnetism) by induction
Synonym Usage
See persuade.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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inducernoun
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preinduceverb (used with object)
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reinduceverb (used with object)
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inducibleadjective
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noninducibleadjective
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uninducibleadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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inducesimple
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inducessimple
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have inducedperfect
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has inducedperfect
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am inducingprogressive
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are inducingprogressive
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is inducingprogressive
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have been inducingperfect progressive
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has been inducingperfect progressive
Past
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inducedsimple
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had inducedperfect
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was inducingprogressive
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were inducingprogressive
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had been inducingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of induce
First recorded in 1325–75; Middle English, from Latin indūcere “to lead or bring in, introduce,” equivalent to in- in- 2 + dūcere “to lead”; cf. adduce, deduce, reduce
Explanation
To induce is to move or lead someone to action. A promise of a lollipop can induce a toddler to do just about anything, even sit down and be polite to Aunt Edna. Older kids need something more substantial. Some people believe that if you offer someone a large enough sum of money, you could induce them to do almost anything. But a movie heroine might say to the villain, "Nothing could induce me to marry you. Not all the money in the world. Not if you were the last man on Earth!" Induce also means to stimulate the occurrence of something, such as medications used to induce vomiting, or to induce a pregnant woman to go into labor.
Vocabulary lists containing induce
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
"The strain-dependent nature suggests that we may be able to use lattice strain as a tuning knob to induce or control altermagnetism," Zhang said.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 27, 2026
Section 301 allows a president to tariff as a targeted economic diplomacy measure to induce a foreign government to abandon a particular practice.
From Slate ● Aug. 27, 2026
Researchers are using controlled, low-dose gamma irradiation on plant tissues to induce stable genetic mutations.
From BBC ● Jul. 30, 2026
“Even a slightly weaker U.S. dollar over the past year, which provides more purchasing power for foreigners, did not induce more activity,” Lawrence Yun, chief economist at NAR, said in a statement.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 29, 2026
Juno’s plan was to have the two fall in love with each other and so divert Aeneas from Italy and induce him to settle down with Dido.
From "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Edith Hamilton
The time we spend dealing with these automated interfaces isn’t only time away from real living, but it induces feelings of helplessness, frustration, and occasionally rage.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 17, 2026
It is used in combination with a second drug misoprostol, which induces cramping.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 14, 2026
Poornima, a salt pan worker, sips black tea during the day -- saying the hot drink induces sweating in the dry weather to cool the body.
From Barron's ● May 10, 2026
Their insight: Outcome-based penalties only work when embedded in a menu that first induces honest self-selection.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 20, 2026
“The transmitter and the liquid that induces the simulation. The transmitter communicates information to the brain from the computer, and vice versa, and the liquid alters the brain to put it in a simulation state.”
From "Insurgent" by Veronica Roth
Officials said they suspect medication he was taking induced a false result, allowing his entry into the country.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 6, 2026
As a next step, Segura's laboratory is investigating EVs produced by human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived astrocytes.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 4, 2026
“By no act, or direction of mine, official or private, could I be induced to aid, knowingly, in giving circulation to papers of this description, directly or indirectly,” he explained.
From Slate ● Sep. 4, 2026
Confined to her hospital bed as she waited for her baby to be induced, Ania Aliev was attempting to finalise a deal to buy a company and put herself in the top job.
From BBC ● Sep. 2, 2026
The Joliots had hypothesized that the same radioactivity they had induced in boron with alpha particles would be produced by deuterons acting on carbon.
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
Since the founding of the Soviet Union, Moscow’s security services have relied on inducing people they wished to arrest into committing some hostile or unlawful act in order to arrest them.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2026
But Snell avoided further damage by inducing Jordan Beck to fly out and Cole Carrigg to strike out.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 18, 2026
The centre of this anticyclone will shift eastwards on Tuesday, inducing warm south-easterly flows across much of the UK, with a lot of dry weather.
From BBC ● Aug. 7, 2026
It signals to every counterparty transacting with a designated party that it could be next, inducing it to sever its ties to Iranian-linked finance.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 9, 2026
On tire surface, there is something unappealing about the idea of inducing other people to flatten their accents in order to compete in a flatter world.
From "The World Is Flat" by Thomas L. Friedman
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
