im|ply

im|ply «ihm PLY», transitive verb, -plied, -ply|ing.

1. to mean (a thing) without saying it outright; express in an indirect way; suggest: »

Silence often implies consent. Mother's smile implied that she had forgiven us.

SYNONYM(S): insinuate.

2. to involve as a necessary part or condition: »

Speech implies a speaker.

3. to signify; mean.

4. Obsolete. to entangle; involve: »

Striving to loose the knott…Himself in streighter bandes too rash implyes (Edmund Spenser).

╂[< Old French emplier involve, put (in) < Latin implicāre. See etym. of doublets employ (Cf. ↑employ), implicate. (Cf. ↑implicate)]

Usage Imply, infer. Formerly it was held that a writer or speaker implies something in his words or manner; a reader or listener infers something from what he reads, sees, or hears: »

She implied by the look in her eyes that she did not intend to keep the appointment. We inferred from the principal's announcement that he knew who had broken the window.

Now the distinction has broken down widely in speech and infer has been used so much with the meaning of imply that that is given as a secondary sense of the word in dictionaries, though many writers and commentators on language deplore this secondary sense.