imply

verb

1. 1

   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. 2

   To suggest by logical inference.

   When I state that your dog is brown, I am not implying that all dogs are brown.

3. 3

   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. 4

   archaicTo enfold, entangle.

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

Forms

past tense

implied

past participle

implied

present participle

implying

third person singular

implies