implication
Pluralimplications
- 1A possible effect or result that follows from a decision or action.
Economists debated the implications of the sudden interest rate hike.
Every policy change carries an implication for the people it affects.
Similarconsequence, ramification, repercussion, effect, result
Note
This sense lives mostly in the plural and is usually followed by for or of. The for-phrase names what will be affected (serious implications for the environment), and the of-phrase names the decision or event whose effects are in question (the implications of this election). The singular is less common but still natural: Ronald Brownstein writes in 2021 of "an unmistakable implication for tomorrow."
- 2Something understood from what is said or done, though not stated directly in words.
The implication of his long silence was clear to everyone in the room.
By implication, the report blamed management for the failure.
Similarsuggestion, insinuation, hint, innuendo, meaning
Note
Here the meaning rides beneath the words rather than on them. Two constructions do most of the work. By implication works as an adverbial phrase meaning "without saying so outright." An implication that is followed by a clause spelling out what is suggested. Lance J. Rips, in Lines of Thought (2011), describes moving shapes with "no implication that one shape caused the other to move."
- 3The condition of being shown to be involved in or connected to something, especially a crime.
The witness's testimony resulted in the manager's implication in the theft.
He feared implication in a plot he knew nothing about.
Similarinvolvement, entanglement, complicity, incrimination
Oppositeexoneration, vindication
- 4The action of showing or suggesting that someone is involved in a crime or wrongdoing.
The prosecutor's implication of the senator dominated the evening news.
His careless implication of innocent bystanders damaged the entire investigation.
Similarincrimination, inculpation
Oppositeexoneration, exculpation, vindication
Note
The noun is built straight from the verb: implicate plus -ion, reached through Middle French from Latin implicatio. Here it names the doing, someone's act of drawing another person into wrongdoing, so it usually takes an of-phrase for the person drawn in (the prosecutor's implication of the senator). When the focus moves to the person who ends up involved, the word becomes the state of being implicated, usually followed by in.
- 5The relationship by which one thing follows necessarily from another as a logical consequence.
Each premise leads by implication to the final conclusion.
The theorem's implication holds for every case that meets the stated conditions.
Similarentailment, deduction, inference
- 6A connective in propositional logic joining two statements A and B to mean that if A is true, B is true.
The implication A → B is false only when A is true and B is false.
Each implication in the proof connects a hypothesis to its result.
Similarconditional
Note
The logician's arrow is written A → B and read "if A, then B." It is false in exactly one case, when A is true and B is false, and true in every other case. Logicians also call it the material conditional. It is a connective that sits inside a formula, so it should not be confused with logical consequence, a relation that holds between whole statements.
Practice
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Origin
This word came through Middle French "implication" from Latin "implicationem," the accusative of "implicatio." It is equivalent to "implicate" plus the suffix "-ion."