Etymology

From Middle EnglishCategory:English terms inherited from Middle English#IMPLYCategory:English terms derived from Middle English#IMPLY implien, emplien, borrowed from Old FrenchCategory:English terms derived from Old French#IMPLY emplier, from LatinCategory:English terms derived from Latin#IMPLY implicare (“to infold, involve”), from in (“in”) + plicare (“to fold”). Doublet of employ and implicateCategory:English doublets#IMPLY.

Pronunciation

• (General American, Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɪmˈplaɪ/Category:English 2-syllable words#IMPLYCategory:English terms with IPA pronunciation#IMPLY

• Audio (US):

  (file)

  Category:English terms with audio pronunciation#IMPLY
• Rhymes: -aɪCategory:Rhymes:English/aɪ#IMPLYCategory:Rhymes:English/aɪ/2 syllables#IMPLY
• Hyphenation: im‧ply

Verb

imply (third-person singular simple present implies, present participle implying, simple past and past participle implied)Category:English lemmas#IMPLYCategory:English verbs#IMPLYCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#IMPLYCategory:Pages with entries#IMPLYCategory:Pages with 1 entry#IMPLY

1. (transitiveCategory:English transitive verbs#IMPLY, of a proposition) To have as a necessary consequence; to lead to (something) as a consequence.

   Synonyms: entail, implicate, import

   Correlation does not imply causationCategory:English terms with collocations#IMPLY

   The proposition that "all dogs are mammals" implies that my dog is a mammal.Category:English terms with usage examples#IMPLY

   • 2016, Grigoriy Blekherman, Daniel Plaumann, Rainer Sinn, Cynthia Vinzant, “Low-Rank Sum-of-Squares Representations on Varieties of Minimal Degree”, in arXiv‎:

     Our upper bound is the best possible, and it implies the existence of low-rank factorizations of positive semidefinite bivariate matrix polynomials and representations of biforms as sums of few squares.

     Category:English terms with quotations#IMPLY

2. (transitiveCategory:English transitive verbs#IMPLY, of a person) To suggest by logical inference.

   When I state that your dog is brown, I am not implying that all dogs are brown.Category:English terms with usage examples#IMPLY

3. (transitiveCategory:English transitive verbs#IMPLY, of a person or proposition) To hint; to insinuate; to suggest tacitly and avoid a direct statement.

   Synonyms: allude, hint, infer (proscribed), insinuate, suggest; see also Thesaurus:allude

   What do you mean "we need to be more careful with hygiene"? Are you implying that I don't wash my hands?Category:English terms with usage examples#IMPLY

   • 2013, Margaret Helen Hobbs, Carla Rice, Gender and Women's Studies in Canada: Critical Terrain, →ISBN, page 13:

     The wrongminded notion of the feminist movement which implied it was anti-male carried with it the wrongminded assumption that all female space would necessarily be an environment where patriarchy and sexist thinking would be absent.

     Category:English terms with quotations#IMPLY

   • 2019, Margaret Laurence, The Diviners:

     Naturally, the river wasn't wrinkled or creased at all— wrong words, implying something unfluid like skin, something unenduring, prey to age.

     Category:English terms with quotations#IMPLY

   • 2022, R. F. Kuang, Babel, HarperVoyager, page 470:

     Both French and English had once used parcel to refer to pieces of land that made up an estate, but when it evolved to imply an item of business in both, it retained its connotations of small fragmentariness in French, whereas in English it simply meant a package.

     Category:English terms with quotations#IMPLY

4. (archaicCategory:English terms with archaic senses#IMPLY) To enfold, entangle.

   Synonyms: envelop, wrap up; ensnare, implicate; see also Thesaurus:tangle

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     And in his bosome secretly there lay / An hatefull Snake, the which his taile vptyes / In many folds, and mortall sting implyes.

     Category:English terms with quotations#IMPLY

See also

Further reading

• “imply”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “imply”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.