verb · neutral

imply

/ɪmˈplaɪ/im·PLY

Band 5-6task2speaking

suggest something without saying it directly

Examples

The study implies that many students prefer online resources.

Are you implying that I was wrong?

His comments implied a lack of confidence in the plan.

Band 8 sentence

Although the author did not state it directly, the data imply a correlation between income and health outcomes.

Collocations

  • imply that
  • be implied by
  • implicit implication

Word family

implication nounimplicit adjective

Common mistakes

meanimply

Say it for a higher band

5suggest6imply7+imply

Synonyms

suggest

Easily confused

imply vs infer

From his tone, I inferred that he was unhappy.

Related words

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In Sublist 3

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