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Concise; to the point; as, close reasoning. "Where the original is close no version can reach it in the same compass." Dryden.

To know or perceive; to recognize. The reasoning faculty can deal with no facts until they are cognized by it. H. Spencer.

ollow naturally and logically, as the parts of a discourse, or as arguments in a train of reasoning; to be logically consistent. They have been inserted where they best seemed to cohere. Burke.

Deducing consequences; reasoning; inferring. [Obs.] "Critical and collective reason." Sir T. Browne.

To reach as an end of reasoning; to infer, as from premises; to close, as an argument, by inferring; -- sometimes followed by a dependent clause. No man can conclude God's love or hatred to any person by anything that befalls him. Tillotson. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith. Rom. iii. 28.…

Any inference or result of reasoning.

That which follows from propositions by rational deduction; that which is deduced from reasoning or argumentation; a conclusion, or inference.

To make matter of controversy; to dispute or oppose by reasoning; to contend against in words or writings; to contest; to debate. Some controverted points had decided according to the sense of the best jurists. Macaulay.

To contend for in words or arguments; to strive to maintain by reasoning; to dispute; to contest; to discuss; to argue for and against. A wise council . . . that did debate this business. Shak. Debate thy cause with thy neighbor himself. Prov. xxv. 9.

To derive or draw; to derive by logical process; to obtain or arrive at as the result of reasoning; to gather, as a truth or opinion, from what precedes or from premises; to infer; -- with from or out of. O goddess, say, shall I deduce my rhymes From the dire nation in its early times Pope. Reasoning is nothing but the…

Capable of being deduced or inferred; derivable by reasoning, as a result or consequence. All properties of a triangle depend on, and are deducible from, the complex idea of three lines including a space. Locke.

That which is deduced or drawn from premises by a process of reasoning; an inference; a conclusion. Make fair deductions; see to what they mount. Pope.

Direct; proving directly; -- applied to reasoning, and opposed to elenchtic or refutative.

To show, or make evident, by reasoning or proof; to prove by deduction; to establish so as to exclude the possibility of doubt or denial. We can not demonstrate these things so as to show that the contrary often involves a contradiction. Tillotson.

A course of reasoning showing that a certain result is a necessary consequence of assumed premises; -- these premises being definitions, axioms, and previously established propositions. Direct, or Positive, demonstration (Logic & Math.), one in which the correct conclusion is the immediate sequence of reasoning from ax…

structive distillation. See Distillation. -- Destructive sorties ( (Logic), a process of reasoning which involves the denial of the first of a series of dependent propositions as a consequence of the denial of the last; a species of reductio ad absurdum. Whately.

That branch of logic which teaches the rules and modes of reasoning; the application of logical principles to discursive reasoning; the science or art of discriminating truth from error; logical discussion.

A written composition in which two or more persons are represented as conversing or reasoning on some topic; as, the Dialogues of Plato.

e fact or reason to another, and deriving a conclusion; an exercise or act of this power; reasoning; range of reasoning faculty. [Obs.] Difficult, strange, and harsh to the discourses of natural reason. South. Sure he that made us with such large discourse, Looking before and after, gave us not That capability and godl…

Reasoning; characterized by reasoning; passing from premises to consequences; discursive. Milton.