[a. Fr. adduction (16th c. in Litt.), ad. med.L. addūctiōn-em, n. of action, f. addūcĕre: see ADDUCE.] The action of bringing to or towards.
† 1. The action of bringing a thing to something else; spec. the alleged bringing of our Lord’s body and blood into the elements, transubstantiation. Obs.
1638. Featley, Transubst., 182. Such an adduction importeth onely a translocation.
2. The action of adducting; in Phys. the opposite of abduction.
1656. trans. Hobbes’s Elem. Philos. (1839), 343. The bending of a line is either the adduction or diduction of the extreme parts.
1666. J. Smith, Solomon’s Old Age (1676), 62. If we consider how they [the muscles] can stir the limb inward, outward … can perform adduction, abduction.
1709. Blair, Osteogr. Eleph., in Phil. Trans., XXVII. 129. The motion of the Humerus … is rather Flexion and Extension, than Adduction or Abduction.
1872. Huxley, Physiol., VII. 174. The different kinds of movements which the levers thus connected are capable of performing are called … abduction and adduction.
3. The action of adducing or bringing forward facts or statements.
1764. Swinton, in Phil. Trans., LIV. 399. The Chaldee term being of the singular number … the adduction of it seems altogether impertinent.
1836. J. Gilbert, Chr. Atonem., ii. (1852), 44. The adduction of such parts of Scripture as furnish an obvious ground for the conclusion.
1860. Gosse, Rom. Nat. Hist., 280. These attributes are so characteristic … that … their adduction gives a measure of authority to the statement.
