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By Judy Vorfeld


Imply means that some­one wants to make some­thing under­stood with­out express­ing it directly. It is safe to say that this tech­nique is used often by politicians.

Synonyms: hint, sug­gest, insin­u­ate, point toward.


Infer means that the hearer per­ceives or con­cludes some­thing (today we’d say some­one “gets it”).

Synonyms: assume, deduce, judge, sup­pose, gather, con­jec­ture, sur­mise, under­stand, extrap­o­late, reckon, and reason.

Examples: The jurors lis­tened care­fully, and all inferred that the wit­ness was lying…I lis­tened to Dan Rather’s inter­view and inferred that the politi­cian would never be forthcoming.

One uni­ver­sity writ­ing lab says, “You imply things through your own words. You infer things from some­one else’s words.” The speaker implies. The lis­tener infers (gets it).


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