These words refer to signs or evidence, indirectly given or covertly present, from which certain meanings may be inferred. Hint is the most informal of these words and most often refers to a sign intentionally given to alert someone else to something that might otherwise be overlooked: giving him a hint that she wouldn’t mind being asked for a date. The word may also refer to clues unintentionally given: inadvertent behaviour that was a hint of some deeper emotional disturbance. At an even further remove, the word may suggest a sign inherent in any set of data: a campsite that gave hints of recent use; a hint of autumn in the air.

Suggestion differs from hint in that it may refer to more directly presented statements; even here, however, the emphasis is on a tactful presentation that stops short of insistence or flat recommendation: her suggestion that he try thinning the paint with turpentine. Less commonly than with hint , the word may refer to inadvertent clues or to signs inherent in data: a suggestion of nervousness in the way he kept running his hand through his hair; a city that teemed with suggestions concerning the fast-paced life of its inhabitants.

Implication may, like hint , refer to an intentionally given sign, although greater indirection is stressed: He backed up her suggestion that the child get ready for bed, with a broad hint about a bedtime snack and an unspoken implication that the child might be punished for not obeying. More often the word is restricted to indicate indirect evidence of any sort from which meaning can be inferred: arguing that the development of an inconsiderate selfishness was one implication of the permissive rearing of children; an implication of disapproval that underlay the author’s seemingly objective treatment of his major character.

Intimation is alone among these words in stressing the gaining of an insight into the future: an intimation from the outset that he would not find his new job a pleasant one. Sometimes the word may suggest a vague feeling or suspicion arrived at without evidence of any kind, either by intuitive or supernatural processes: an intimation that he would one day ask her to marry him; an intimation that the world would come to an end on Friday. The word may also refer to intuitions or suspicion that do not pertain to futurity: getting any number of intimations that his friend’s childhood had been unusually bleak and forbidding.

Innuendo and insinuation are closely related; both are set apart from these other words by concentrating mainly on intentionally given signs that bristle with unpleasant or hostile meanings. Innuendo can be seen as a negative implication; insinuation as a negative suggestion: making a thinly veiled innuendo that reflected on the morality of his opponent; a barrage of slight but mounting insinuations that he should perhaps give up trying to be a playwright. Innuendo , in addition, implies an unsupported or unsupportable personal attack that is never spelt out; insinuation may imply a process of worming one’s way into someone’s favour by obsequious methods in order to harm that person or someone else: Cassiu’s innuendoes to Brutus about Caesar’s untrustworthiness; Iago’s insinuations concerning Desdemona’s virtue.

ANTONYMS; affirmation, assertion, declaration.