imply

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
12
Words With Friends
14
Letters
5
Pronunciation
/ɪmˈplaɪ/

Definition of imply

5 senses · 2 parts of speech · etymology included

verb

  1. (transitive)To have as a necessary consequence; to lead to (something) as a consequence.
    “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.”
See all 5 definitions

verb

  1. (transitive)To have as a necessary consequence; to lead to (something) as a consequence.
    “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.”
  2. (transitive)To suggest by logical inference.
    “When I state that your dog is brown, I am not implying that all dogs are brown.”
  3. (transitive)To hint; to insinuate; to suggest tacitly and avoid a direct statement.
    “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.”
  4. (archaic)To enfold, entangle.
    “And in his bosome secretly there lay / An hatefull Snake, the which his taile vptyes / In many folds, and mortall sting implyes.”

noun

  1. A logic gate that implements material implication.

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

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.

Anagrams of imply

1 play · some not in Scrabble

Words you can make from imply

12 playable · top: LIMY (9 pts)

Best play limy 9 points

4-letter words

2 words

3-letter words

5 words

2-letter words

4 words

Hooks

5 extensions · 5 front

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