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ENGLISH DICTIONARY

Imply

/ɪmˈplaɪ/ · verb

Meaning

(transitive, of a proposition) To have as a necessary consequence; to lead to (something) as a consequence..

Definitions by Sense

  1. (transitive, of a proposition) To have as a necessary consequence; to lead to (something) as a consequence.
  2. (transitive, of a person) To suggest by logical inference.
  3. (transitive, of a person or proposition) To hint; to insinuate; to suggest tacitly and avoid a direct statement.
  4. (archaic) To enfold, entangle.

Example Sentences

Correlation does not imply causation
The proposition that "all dogs are mammals" implies that my dog is a mammal.
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.
When I state that your dog is brown, I am not implying that all dogs are brown.
What do you mean "we need to be more careful with hygiene"? Are you implying that I don't wash my hands?
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.
Naturally, the river wasn't wrinkled or creased at all— wrong words, implying something unfluid like skin, something unenduring, prey to age.
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.

Synonyms for imply

Antonyms for imply

Related Words

Word Forms

Usage Notes

Choose a synonym only when it preserves the intended meaning, tone, and grammar of the full sentence.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What does imply mean?

Imply means (transitive, of a proposition) To have as a necessary consequence; to lead to (something) as a consequence..

What is a synonym for imply?

Common synonyms include entail, implicate, import, allude.

What is the opposite of imply?

The opposite depends on the specific sense.

How do you use imply in a sentence?

Correlation does not imply causation

Sources & Attribution

FreeDictionaryAPI.com / Wiktionary · Original source · CC BY-SA 4.0

Dictionary data is provided by FreeDictionaryAPI.com and sourced from Wiktionary under its stated license.