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act of .
the state of being .
law. the illegal carrying or enticing away of a person, especially by interfering with a relationship, as the taking of a child from its parent.
a syllogism whose major premise is certain but whose minor premise is probable.
contemporary examples

did he denounce the involvement of organized crime in the abduction and disappearance of 43 students in the nearby city of iguala?
mexico’s priests are marked for murder jason mcgahan january 6, 2015

richard ben cramer explores the abduction of olympic athlete kari swenson and the indefatigable sheriff who hunted her abductor.
the ballad of johnny france richard ben cramer january 11, 2014

one man, who said he had partic-p-ted in the abduction and identified himself as mikhail, denied violence was involved.
russia’s gay hunting anna nemtsova august 8, 2013

the ceasefire that the united states had hoped might end the gaza war broke open friday with the abduction of an israeli officer.
abduction is hamas’s most terrifying weapon eli lake july 31, 2014

the former taliban prisoner is gearing up for the investigation into his disappearance and abduction in afghanistan.
bowe bergdahl thanks obama for ‘saving his life’ josh rogin july 15, 2014

historical examples

it is impossible that he could have arranged for the abduction.
the place of honeymoons harold macgrath

it was more like abduction complicated with -ssault and battery.
the spenders harry leon wilson

besides, the abduction of a child is an utterly illegal and reprehensible act—no matter what the motive.
shadows of flames amelie rives

and were you a party to the abduction of this innocent creature?
ridgeway scian dubh

never before had maria heard the history of zra’s abduction and escape, and she was amazed at the girl’s endurance and bravery.
a n-ble queen, vol. 3 (of 3) philip meadows taylor

noun
the act of taking someone away by force or cunning; kidnapping
the action of certain muscles in pulling a leg, arm, etc away from the median axis of the body
n.

1620s, “a leading away,” from latin abductionem (nominative abductio), noun of action from past participle stem of abducere “to lead away, take away” (often by force), from ab- “away” (see ab-) + ducere “to lead” (see duke (n.)). the illegal activity so called from 1768; before that the word also was a term in surgery and logic. in the mercian hymns, latin abductione is glossed by old english wiðlaednisse.
logic
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 [email protected]].
(2000-12-07)