Implication Inference and Unspoken Meaning
Open a theme, then select a word or phrase for its meaning, example and pronunciation.
1. Implied claims (20 entries)
- implicature
- insinuation
- connote
- intimate
- tacit
- intimation
- unacknowledged
- professed
- overstate one's case
- imply more than one can prove
- eliminate a false implication
- that is a rather different proposition
- debunk
- pick someone up on a claim
- impugn
- authenticate
- it hardly follows that
- swear blind that
- truism
- bogus
2. Presupposition (20 entries)
- predicate on
- entailment
- preconception
- existential presupposition
- preclude
- gainsay
- entail
- presupposition
- surmise
- obviate
- attest to
- theorise
- evince
- controvert
- exemplify
- necessitate
- validate
- bear witness to
- militate against
- presuppose
3. Interpretive cues (20 entries)
- circumlocution
- co-text
- ellipsis
- let the implication linger
- have the last word
- take a remark out of context
- talk over someone's head
- go off at a tangent
- take a remark the wrong way
- get the wrong end of the stick
- cede the floor
- put a gloss on someone's words
- as much as to say
- put words into someone's mouth
- finish someone's thought for them
- leave a suggestion hanging
- lose the thread of one's argument
- hold the floor
- pick up a thread from earlier
- shrug
4. Ambiguous intentions (20 entries)
- studied neutrality
- equivocation
- indirection
- plausible deniability
- obliqueness
- disingenuous question
- duplicity
- rumination
- beggar description
- warranted scepticism
- confirmation-seeking
- tautology
- undemonstrative
- a counterfactual conditional
- hazard a conjecture
- deferral
- hinder
- wayward
- interrogative
- ruminate
5. Drawing fine distinctions (20 entries)
- disambiguate
- delineate
- elucidate
- demarcate
- explicate
- elaborate on
- expound
- discern
- typify
- reconceptualise
- construe
- tease apart
- instantiate
- parse
- misconstrue
- reinterpret
- decontextualise
- exclude by definition
- epitomise
- sift through
