Plain English Meaning

The drag a wing creates simply because it is making lift. The harder the wing has to work to hold the airplane up — at slow speeds or steep angles — the more of this drag it produces.

Full Definition

The component of total aerodynamic drag that is produced as a direct by-product of generating lift. As a wing produces lift, higher pressure beneath the wing spills around the wingtip into the lower pressure above it, creating wingtip vortices and tilting the lift vector slightly rearward. The rearward component of that tilted lift is induced drag. It increases as airspeed decreases and as angle of attack increases, becoming dominant at low airspeeds and high lift coefficients.