TITLE: Inductive hypothesis vs induction hypothesis
QUESTION [8 upvotes]: I'm doing a proof by induction. Should I refer to induction hypothesis or to inductive hypothesis in the proof?

REPLY [5 votes]: It is acceptable, especially in technical English, to use nouns as adjectives. Indeed there are some cases where it is preferable: for example, our China correspondent refers to the correspondent based in China (who may not be Chinese). However, generally, keeping nouns and adjectives in their respective roles makes reading easier. This is particularly true in a many-word noun phrase. Since inductive is well established and understood, using it in this case costs nothing, and many people who care about such things would prefer it. (Incidentally, noun phrase is better than substantive phrase here, for ease of recognition in the present context.)