 4 definitions found
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
abduction
noun
1: the criminal act of capturing and carrying away by force a
family member; if a man's wife is abducted it is a crime
against the family relationship and against the wife
2: (physiology) moving of a body part away from the central
axis of the body
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Abduction \Ab*duc"tion\, noun [L. abductio: cf. F. abduction.]
1. The act of abducing or abducting; a drawing apart; a
carrying away. --Roget.
2. (Physiol.) The movement which separates a limb or other
part from the axis, or middle line, of the body.
3. (Law) The wrongful, and usually the forcible, carrying off
of a human being; as, the abduction of a child, the
abduction of an heiress.
4. (Logic) A syllogism or form of argument in which the major
is evident, but the minor is only probable.
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
28 Moby Thesaurus words for "abduction":
apprehension, arrest, arrestation, capture, catch, catching,
collaring, coup, crimping, dragnet, forcible seizure, grab,
grabbing, hold, impressment, kidnapping, nabbing, picking up,
power grab, prehension, running in, seizure, seizure of power,
shanghaiing, snatch, snatching, taking in, taking into custody
From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:
abduction
The process of {inference} to the best explanation.
"Abduction" is sometimes used to mean just the generation of
hypotheses to explain observations or conclusionsm, but the
former definition is more common both in philosophy and
computing.
The {semantics} and the implementation of abduction cannot be
reduced to those for {deduction}, as explanation cannot be
reduced to implication.
Applications include fault diagnosis, plan formation and
{default reasoning}.
{Negation as failure} in {logic programming} can both be given
an abductive interpretation and also can be used to implement
abduction. The abductive semantics of negation as failure
leads naturally to an {argumentation}-theoretic interpretation
of default reasoning in general.
[Better explanation? Example?]
["Abductive Inference", John R. Josephson
].
(2000-12-07)
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