Definition of induction

• n. - The act or process of inducting or bringing in; introduction; entrance; beginning; commencement.
• n. - An introduction or introductory scene, as to a play; a preface; a prologue.
• n. - The act or process of reasoning from a part to a whole, from particulars to generals, or from the individual to the universal; also, the result or inference so reached.
• n. - The introduction of a clergyman into a benefice, or of an official into a office, with appropriate acts or ceremonies; the giving actual possession of an ecclesiastical living or its temporalities.
• n. - A process of demonstration in which a general truth is gathered from an examination of particular cases, one of which is known to be true, the examination being so conducted that each case is made to depend on the preceding one; -- called also successive induction.
• n. - The property by which one body, having electrical or magnetic polarity, causes or induces it in another body without direct contact; an impress of electrical or magnetic force or condition from one body on another without actual contact.