All 4 Uses of
infer
in
The Purloined Letter
- "It is clearly inferred," replied the Prefect,
*inferred = concluded by reasoning
- All fools are poets; this the Prefect feels; and he is merely guilty of a non distributio medii in thence inferring that all poets are fools.†
- Bryant, in his very learned 'Mythology,' mentions an analogous source of error, when he says that 'although the Pagan fables are not believed, yet we forget ourselves continually, and make inferences from them as existing realities.'†
- With the algebraists, however, who are Pagans themselves, the 'Pagan fables' are believed, and the inferences are made, not so much through lapse of memory, as through an unaccountable addling of the brains.†
Definition:
-
(infer) to figure out or guess by reasoning