indirect evidence
nounDefinition of indirect evidence
: evidence that establishes immediately collateral facts from which the main fact may be inferred : circumstantial evidence
Examples of indirect evidence in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
What researchers have found so far is mostly indirect evidence of a payoff, such as identifying worker characteristics that correspond to productivity. — Rose Eveleth, Scientific American, "Your Employer May Be Spying on You—and Wasting Its Time," 16 Aug. 2019 Does the tabletop experiment provide indirect evidence for Hawking’s prediction? — Quanta Magazine, "Can Analogies Reveal the Laws of Physics?," 10 Nov. 2016 Instead, scientists have turned to indirect evidence. — Mitch Leslie, Science | AAAS, "Talk to the hand. Scientists try to debunk idea that finger length can reveal personality and health," 6 June 2019 That’s why, for this new study in the journal Nature, an international team of astronomers relied on indirect evidence, searching instead for signatures of oxygen and helium—elements that can only be created in the cores of stars. — Jason Daley, Smithsonian, "Astronomers Find Signature From the Universe’s Earliest Known Stars," 22 May 2018 Attorneys usually try to prove their case with indirect evidence, such as a defendant’s hiring record. — Liz Kowalczyk, BostonGlobe.com, "Black nurses sue Brigham and Women’s Hospital," 29 Apr. 2018 So the new studies sought to infer the state of the circulation from more indirect evidence. — Chris Mooney, chicagotribune.com, "Studies say Atlantic Ocean's circulation slowing dramatically, increasing climate change fears," 11 Apr. 2018 So the new studies sought to infer the state of the circulation from more indirect evidence. — Chris Mooney, BostonGlobe.com, "Atlantic Ocean circulation hasn’t been this sluggish in 1,000 years. What that means for New England," 11 Apr. 2018 Caltech astronomers Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin have accumulated indirect evidence for an object that’s more than twice the diameter of Earth, but 10 times as far from the sun as Pluto. — David Freeman, NBC News, "15 top science & tech leaders offer surprising predictions for 2018," 31 Dec. 2017These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'indirect evidence.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Keep scrolling for more
Keep scrolling for more