Word Direct Answers

What does "demonstration" mean?

Demonstration: An expression, as of the feelings, by outward signs; a manifestation; a show. Did your letters pierce the queen to any demonstration of grief Shak. Loyal demonstrations toward the prince. Prescott.

Additional senses

  1. 2.(Anat.) The exhibition and explanation of a dissection or other anatomical preparation.
  2. 3.(Mil.) a decisive exhibition of force, or a movement indicating an attack.
  3. 4.(Logic) The act of proving by the syllogistic process, or the proof itself.
  4. 5.(Math.) 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 axiomatic or established premises; -- opposed to Indirect, or Negative, demonstration (called also reductio ad absurdum), in which the correct conclusion is an inference from the demonstration that any other hypothesis must be incorrect.

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