Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A slight hint or indication.
- noun A slight understanding or vague idea or notion.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A hint; an intimation; a slight or imperfect idea or notion.
- noun Inclination; desire.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A hint; an intimation.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A slight
suspicion orhint . - noun dialect
Inclination ,desire . - verb Present participle of
inkle .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a slight suggestion or vague understanding
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
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Examples
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It's hard to know where to start when your best inkling is to read some papers and try to find time with the overbooked senior graduate student.
Postdoc Possibilities and Preferences Candid Engineer 2008
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"If I do, the inkling is to want to pitch to him, but maybe there's a situation where we pitch around him," he said.
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She'll maybe have had some inkling from the Lord that her bairn was coming.
Kirsteen: The Story of a Scotch Family Seventy Years Ago Margaret 1891
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I’m getting in inkling of why CBS says they had to shut down comments on on Obama stories. dsbo lhxromacd Says:
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But, just the same, the inkling is a built-in nuance or, "tell"; and it does exist.
American Chronicle 2008
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Just how you managed to work "inkling" into a discussion that started out with Tolkien and Lewis!
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How much in advance I don't know, but we would probably have some kind of inkling that it was going on.
Hits and Missiles 2008
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How much in advance I don't know, but we would probably have some kind of inkling that it was going on.
Hits and Missiles 2008
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I just cannot believe, no offense to the bride, that there was just no "inkling" this "wedding cake lady" to be kind was less than professional?
I Think I've Just Been Punk'd Jen 2008
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If Ms. Fox had an 'inkling' [phonetic/pun] of what it is to simply deliver the product, she might want to consider washing her hands of the whole thing.
Election update David 2005
fbharjo commented on the word inkling
a group at Oxford in the early 20th century with such members as c.s. lewis, owen barfield, J R tolkien ..... who are both prophets and smudge pots... who both had clear and smudge thought were called the "Inklings"...did they have a clue of their impact???????
October 12, 2007
uselessness commented on the word inkling
If I could be part of any "secret society" or somesuch legendary thing, I would join the Inklings.
October 12, 2007
vanishedone commented on the word inkling
In the English translation of Haruki Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, INKlings are 'Infra-Nocturnal Kappa'. From 'The Use of Certain Fantastic Concepts in the Fiction of Murakami Haruki' (PDF):
'...a subterranean labyrinth underneath Tokyo which is inhabited by creatures called yamikuro (an invented word which might be rendered "Darkling")... In this I concur with Susan Napier's suggestion, rather than Birnbaum's acronymic "INKlings", or "infra-nocturnal Kappa", which is entirely his own invention, the need for which is not readily apparent.'
November 3, 2007
bilby commented on the word inkling
See ninkling.
October 3, 2008
Louises commented on the word inkling
The first inkling of animal clarity was already there, a kind of vicious joy in the power that would come. From "The Last Werewolf" by Glen Duncan.
March 27, 2012
fbharjo commented on the word inkling
see first comment in this grouping
March 28, 2012