Adduce and Deduce are both verbs that come from the same stem, -duce, meaning “to lead,” which is seen in reduce, induce, and other words. The prefixes, ad- (“to”) and de- (“from”) suggest the meanings “lead to” (adduce) and “lead from” (deduce)— and these meanings are accurate, if you interpret them in a very abstract way . . .
Deduce, which is much more commonly used than adduce, means “to derive a conclusion from premises or observations”—in other words, to deduce X means “to lead from (premises) to X”:
Some theorists are trying to deduce quantum theory from simple premises.
We deduce from your silence that you don’t know who ate the last piece of cake.
Notice that the second use of deduce does not strictly obey the rules of syllogistic (logical) reasoning; one cannot reliably deduce the conclusion from the premises. In fact, this example technically shows induction. However, English speakers normally just use deduce to mean “figure out,” without worrying about whether the deduction meets the demands of logic (necessary and sufficient conditions for truth).
The word adduce is used mainly in academic and legal contexts and one cannot expect all English speakers to be familiar with it. It means “to present reasoning, proof, evidence, or other support for a conclusion”—in other words, to present anything that supports a conclusion:
Can you adduce some citations to support your claim?
Adduce cannot be used casually, except perhaps for a humorous effect. Even in academic writing, it sounds stiff and old-fashioned. This is not true for deduce.
How to Use "Deduce" in a Sentence
- The detective deduced that the suspect was guilty because he had an alibi that could not be verified.
- I deduced from my observation that you were anxious because your body language showed signs of fear and uncertainty.
- Ultimately, one can deduce from the data that there are more men than women in this industry.
- Although she had been told otherwise, Sonia deduced from his behavior at work today that he had been drinking again.
- The detective is able to use deductive reasoning to find out who committed the crime by looking at all of the evidence at hand and ruling out possibilities until one makes sense.
- I quickly deduced that the boss was angry because he had his tie loosened and his face was red.
- The detective's deductive evidence was enough for a conviction.
- After thorough research, I deduced that I must have been adopted.
- She doesn't know how or why, but she just knows when something is true, so she uses her intuition as a way of making deductions about people and events in her life—this has led to many a problem as you can imagine.
- I am always very careful about what I say online, so that readers won't be able to easily deduce my identity.
How to Use "Adduce" in a Sentence
- She was not able to adduce any more reasons why she should be allowed to leave.
- The lawyer adduced evidence of the suspect's guilt by showing the jury a video of him admitting to the crime.
- When he was asked why he left, he could not come up with a good excuse, so instead he resorted to adducing bad reasons for his behavior.
- One of the most common phrases using adduce is "adducing one's evidence."
- He adduced no evidence to support his claim.
- To no one's surprise, the adduced evidence proved that he had been a thief.
- I need you to adduce evidence for your paper because I was not convinced by your argument.
- He's trying to adduce a logical justification for his behavior, but he's not very convincing and it feels like he's just making excuses.
- You can read about the background and history of the case in the adduced report.
- The judge refused to accept adduced testimony from a defense witness because it was not firsthand knowledge.