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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

imply.

To have as a necessary consequence; to lead to (something) as a consequence.

5 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/ɪmˈplaɪ/General-American, Received-Pronunciation
  1. To have as a necessary consequence; to lead to (something) as a consequence.

    transitive
    Correlation does not imply causation
    The proposition that "all dogs are mammals" implies that my dog is a mammal.
  2. To suggest by logical inference.

    transitive
    When I state that your dog is brown, I am not implying that all dogs are brown.
  3. To hint; to insinuate; to suggest tacitly and avoid a direct statement.

    transitive
    What do you mean "we need to be more careful with hygiene"? Are you implying that I don't wash my hands?
  4. To enfold, entangle.

    archaic
Where this word comes from

From Middle English implien, emplien, borrowed from Old French emplier, from Latin implicare (“to infold, involve”), from in (“in”) + plicare (“to fold”). Doublet of employ and implicate.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.