Synonyms

infer

American

[in-fur] / ɪnˈfɜr /

verb (used with object)

to derive by reasoning; conclude or judge from premises or evidence.

They inferred his displeasure from his cool tone of voice.

Synonyms:

suppose, conjecture, imagine, reason, deduce
(of facts, circumstances, statements, etc.) to indicate or involve as a conclusion; lead to.
to guess; speculate; surmise.
to hint; imply; suggest.

verb (used without object)

to draw a conclusion, as by reasoning.

infer British

/ ɪnˈfɜː /

verb

to conclude (a state of affairs, supposition, etc) by reasoning from evidence; deduce
(tr) to have or lead to as a necessary or logical consequence; indicate
(tr) to hint or imply

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Usage

Infer has been used to mean “to hint or suggest” since the 16th century by speakers and writers of unquestioned ability and eminence: The next speaker criticized the proposal, inferring that it was made solely to embarrass the government. Despite its long history, many usage guides condemn the use, maintaining that the proper word for the intended sense is imply and that to use infer is to lose a valuable distinction between the two words. Although the claimed distinction has probably existed chiefly in the pronouncements of usage guides, and although the use of infer to mean “to suggest” usually produces no ambiguity, the distinction too has a long history and is widely observed by many speakers and writers.

The use of infer to mean imply is becoming more and more common in both speech and writing. There is nevertheless a useful distinction between the two which many people would be in favour of maintaining. To infer means `to deduce', and is used in the construction to infer something from something : I inferred from what she said that she had not been well . To imply (sense 1) means `to suggest, to insinuate' and is normally followed by a clause: are you implying that I was responsible for the mistake?

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

Inflected Forms

Participles

Conjugated Forms

Present

Past

Future

Etymology

Origin of infer

First recorded in 1520–30; from Latin inferre, equivalent to in- + ferre “to bring, carry, bear”; see origin at in- ², bear ¹

Explanation

When you infer something, you read between the lines. To infer is to make a well informed guess — if you see your mom’s bag on the table, you might infer that she’s home. When you infer, you listen closely to someone and guess at things they mean but haven't actually said. It’s like guessing, but not making wild guesses. You're making deductions — guesses based on logic. Another kind of inferring is more scientific, like when a scientist has part of a dinosaur fossil and can infer what the rest of the dinosaur looked like. When you see the word infer, think "educated guess."

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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:

infer infers inferred inferring

Their system was able to infer people's identities with almost 100% accuracy, regardless of the viewing perspective or the way a person walked.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 12, 2026

“We’ll infer from the minutes what Warsh wants us to know and what he doesn’t want us to know. That will give us information on how he intends to run the show,” he said.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 7, 2026

And recently, rapidly advancing artificial-intelligence technologies that can analyze the massive digital dossiers about us and infer nearly everything about us.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 23, 2026

Responding “We bought a Christmas tree” is a happy, cozy statement, reflecting that you will not be spending Christmas alone, or, one can infer, most likely dying alone too.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 22, 2026

“You infer correctly, ” said Blanche. in behalf of/on behalf of.

From "Woe Is I" by Patricia T. O'Conner

Combining these two, Caballero infers that shift from a safety premium to an absorption premium explains about 0.75 percentage points of the roughly 2.5 percentage point rise in yields since 2015.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 2026

For many men, vulnerability frequently infers fragility, weakness and, perhaps in Gyllenhaal’s case, artistic insecurity.

From Salon ● May 27, 2026

Rather than randomly sampling the noise term, their approximation technique infers the missing term from the current 3D shape rendering.

From Science Daily ● Dec. 4, 2024

"And this model infers whether the vessel is likely a fishing vessel or not a fishing vessel, like passenger vessels, oil tankers, shipping vessels and that kind of stuff."

From BBC ● Apr. 3, 2024

From this one infers that the abbey's original functions are performed no more.

From Castles and Chateaux of Old Touraine and the Loire Country by M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield

“But what can’t be inferred from the index is the future value of those currencies,” added Cox in a video interview from his base in Hong Kong.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 31, 2026

From it, the court just inferred that it must recognize serious, heady limits on Congress’ power to spend the tax dollars it has collected.

From Slate ● Jun. 23, 2026

"For many cosmic-ray events taken together, their energy distribution, arrival-direction pattern and statistically inferred composition provide important clues about where these particles come from and how they are accelerated."

From Science Daily ● Jun. 9, 2026

Treasury yields as traders responded to Middle East developments and inferred a hawkish read from this week’s Fed meeting.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 20, 2026

In the absence of written records, the evidence of those prehistoric replacements must be sought in the archaeological record or inferred from linguistic evidence.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond

It’s not even a case of inferring reality from a dog that didn’t bark.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026

But TS Lombard economist Dario Perkins said inferring anything of value from the chart would actually be a mistake.

From MarketWatch ● Nov. 6, 2025

However, Stas acknowledges that the companion is still inferring and reflecting back a user’s cues.

From Slate ● Sep. 25, 2025

The timing of these expressions was critical -- delayed facial mimicry looks disingenuous, but facial co-expression feels more genuine since it requires correctly inferring the human's emotional state for timely execution.

From Science Daily ● Mar. 27, 2024

This practice of inferring the motivations and intentions of others is classic thin-slicing.

From "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023