Abduced

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /əbˈdjuːst/

Definitions

1. Taken or led away forcibly or through persuasion ; reached or obtained by reasoning backward from an effect to a cause
2. Moved or carried off, often against will or by influence ; concluded or derived by inferring from evidence or data
3. Physically guided or removed from a place or position ; deduced or explained through abductive reasoning, going from observations to a hypothesis

Etymology: Latin "abducere" combined "ab-", meaning "away," with "ducere," "to lead," the same root that gives English "duke" and "duct." Its literal sense was simply leading someone or something off somewhere, and English borrowed it in the 1530s with that physical meaning. The word's sister form "abduct" arrived with the same sense of forcible carrying-off, and the two have stayed close in meaning ever since. "Abduce" took on a more specialised life in logic. Here the sense shifts from leading a person away to leading a conclusion away from a known effect back toward a probable cause. Philosophers used it to describe reasoning backward from a result to its explanation, the kind of inference that differs from deduction, which moves forward from premises to a certain conclusion.

Synonyms: taken, abducted