implying

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle of imply.

   By raising his eyebrows, he was implying serious doubt about the plan.

   The report stops short of implying any wrongdoing by the company.

   Note

   The -ing form does double duty. After be it builds the progressive (she was implying that…). As a gerund it names the act while still taking an object (implying fault is not proving it). Because imply is transitive, an object or a that-clause follows. Both main meanings carry over: a logical consequence (figures implying a loss) and a tacit hint. the countable noun shares the spelling and takes a plural.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   An implication; something suggested or hinted at rather than directly stated.

   The constant implying in his memo left readers guessing at the real message.

   Her implying carried more weight than any direct accusation could have.

   Similarinsinuation, innuendo, hinting, suggestion, implication

   Note

   A countable noun with a real plural, implyings, at home in writing about feeling and experience. Den Ouden and Moen's The Presence of Feeling in Thought (1991) calls human events "always implyings," and Janet Banfield's Geography Meets Gendlin (2016) pairs it with occurrings. There the -ing keeps the sense of something ongoing rather than a finished implication. In everyday prose, implication remains the natural choice.

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