infer

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin īnferō (“to bring in, carry in; to cause; to introduce”),^[2][3][4][5] perhaps partly through Middle French inférer,^[6][7] which in medieval Latin also meant to deduce.^[2][5][8] It is formed from in- (“in, into”) and ferō (“to bear, carry”),^[2][3][4] from Proto-Indo-European *bher- (“to carry”),^[3][4] and is related to bear, confer and fertile.^[9][10] Inference is from inferentia.^[11][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

To bring in or draw as a conclusion: 1529, in Thomas More's Dialogue Concerning Heresies;^[2][6] the same year Skelton's Magnyfycence used it for "to bring in, mention" (obsolete by 1710).^[2] Barnhart finds enferre, to bring in, bring forward, in 1526,^[6] and the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English date the sense "bring about, inflict" to the late 15th century.^[5][12]

Semantic evolution

The early English senses followed the Latin closely: to bring about or inflict (from 1540 to 1754 in the OED), to confer, to bring in or mention in speech, and even, rarely, to bury.^[2] Johnson (1755) still gave "to bring on; to induce" first, before the logical sense.^[13] The logical sense, drawing a conclusion from what is known, is recorded from 1529 and the intransitive use, to reason from one thing to another, from 1577.^[2][4] The sense "to lead to as a consequence; to imply", said of a fact or a statement and sometimes of the speaker, is almost as old: the OED records it from about 1530, again in More.^[2] Shakespeare used the word for "to indicate".^[7]

Timeline

• 1526 – enferre, to bring in, bring forward.^[6]
• 1529 – to draw as a conclusion, deduce; also to bring in, mention (obsolete).^[2][6]
• c. 1530 – to involve as a consequence; to imply.^[2]
• c. 1540 – to bring about, cause, inflict (obsolete by 1754).^[2]
• 1577 – intransitive, to draw a conclusion.^[2][4]
• 1589 – to confer, bestow (obsolete by 1633).^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To reach a conclusion by reasoning from evidence or premises; to deduce: From the tracks in the mud we inferred that a deer had passed.^{[14][7][3][2]}
2. To guess or surmise from circumstances.^[7][3]
3. To lead to as a logical consequence; to entail.^[3][7][2]
4. To hint or imply (a use many treat as an error).^{[3][14][7][2]}
5. (intransitive) To draw a conclusion or inference.^[3][2]
6. (obsolete, c. 1540–1754) To bring about or inflict.^{[2][7][5][13]}

Word family

• inferable
• inferably
• inferrer
• inference
• misinfer
• reinfer
• subinfer

Related words

• illative
• illation
• imply
• implication
• bear
• confer
• fertile

Usage notes

Infer and imply are often confused.^[3][14] The American Heritage Dictionary keeps them apart: a speaker or a statement implies what it suggests without saying it outright, while a reader or listener infers, drawing a conclusion that the words do not state; it labels infer "to imply" a usage problem.^[3] Collins notes that infer in the sense of imply is ever more common in speech and writing, but that many would keep the distinction: one infers something from something, and implying is suggesting or insinuating.^[14] The Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins frames it the same way: something in the speaker's words lets the listener deduce, while imply is what the words suggest.^[8] The "imply" sense is not new: the OED records it from about 1530,^[2] and Merriam-Webster's Unabridged lists both "to indicate" and "to hint", with quotations from Shakespeare (1598) to 2006.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins