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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

In this case, limb bones made it possible to identify a new species, infer aspects of its locomotion, investigate its phylogenetic relationships, and expand the known distribution of a rare group of Triassic reptiles.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 10, 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

Wearables shine LEDs into your skin, monitoring blood pumping through your veins to infer heart rate.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 7, 2026

Our intention in making this show was, again, what we know about their lived reality, but what can we infer might have happened behind those closed doors.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 4, 2026

Moreover, most galaxies are found in clusters, and we can similarly infer the presence of yet more dark matter in between the galaxies in these clusters by its effect on the motion of the galaxies.

From "A Brief History of Time: And Other Essays" by Stephen Hawking

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

"The depth infers that it's probably natural. Natural events typically occur at those depths," Salvage said at the time.

From Salon ● Mar. 27, 2023

When you say you are “not expecting to receive many gifts, except from the few friends attending,” Miss Manners infers that you have misplaced your grammar and not your priorities.

From Washington Post ● Sep. 1, 2022

It observes, experiments, and infers; but it makes no claim to the possession of absolute truth.

From Psychical Miscellanea Being Papers on Psychical Research, Telepathy, Hypnotism, Christian Science, etc. by J. Arthur Hill

“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

I could see him moody, difficult, irritable perhaps, but not angry as she had inferred, not passionate.

From "Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier

A senior living alone might not fully understand what the robot in the corner is observing, inferring or reporting.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 23, 2026

Not all of the King's speech needed inferring.

From BBC ● Apr. 29, 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

Obtaining Personal Information The name of the game in statistics is the inferring of information about a large population by examining characteristics of a small, randomly selected sample.

From "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences" by John Allen Paulos

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