imply

  • verb (implies, implied) 1 indicate by suggestion rather than explicit reference. 2 (of a fact or occurrence) suggest as a logical consequence.

  — USAGE The words imply and infer do not mean the same thing. Imply is used with a speaker as its subject, as in he implied that the General had been a traitor, and indicates that the speaker is suggesting something though not making an explicit statement. Infer is used in sentences such as we inferred from his words that the General had been a traitor, and indicates that something in the speaker’s words enabled the listeners to deduce that the man was a traitor.

  — ORIGIN originally in the sense entangle: from Old French emplier, from Latin implicare ‘fold in, involve’.

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