implication

From Middle French implication, from Latin implicationem (accusative of implicatio).Equivalent to implicate +‎ -ion.

• IPA^(key): /ˌɪmpləˈkeɪʃən/

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• Rhymes: -eɪʃən

implication (countable and uncountable, plural implications)

1. (uncountable) The act of implicating.
2. (uncountable) The state of being implicated.
3. (countable) A possible effect or result of a decision or action.

   There are serious implications for the environment of such reforms.

4. (countable, uncountable) An implying, or that which is implied, but not expressed; an inference, or something which may fairly be understood, though not expressed in words.
   • 2011, Lance J. Rips, Lines of Thought: Central Concepts in Cognitive Psychology, page 168:

     But we can also take a more analytical attitude to these displays, interpreting the movements as no more than approachings, touchings, and departings with no implication that one shape caused the other to move.

5. (countable, logic) The connective in propositional calculus that, when joining two predicates A and B in that order, has the meaning "if A is true, then B is true".
6. Logical consequence. (Can we add an example for this sense?)

• material implication
• strict implication

• implicate
• implicative
• implicature
• implicit
• implicitness
• imply

• “implication”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “implication”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

Learned borrowing from Latin implicātiō. By surface analysis, impliquer +‎ -ation.

• IPA^(key): /ɛ̃.pli.ka.sjɔ̃/

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implication f (plural implications)

1. involvement
2. implication

• “implication”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.