Language Arts Let’s take a look at "imply" vs. "infer." While the meaning of the two can sometimes seem identical "imply" and "infer." are actually antonyms. Read on to learn the difference between an implication and an inference and why the two are easily confused.

Keeping imply and infer straight in one's mind is a problem for many people. The key is understanding the relationship between them. They are actually a very special kind of antonym. Read on to find out more.

Antonyms

Antonyms are usually classified as three different types:

Complementary Pairs of antonyms, in which each antonym can be defined as being the opposite of the other member of the pair. For example:

• permitted/forbidden           permitted = not forbidden; forbidden = not permitted

Gradable Pairs of antonyms, in which each antonym is an opposite endpoint of a range or cline and there are many defined points in between. For example:

• black/white  

black - charcoal gray - slate gray - ash gray - silver gray - white

Relational or Converse Pairs of antonyms, in which the antonyms look at a particular situation from opposite viewpoints. For example:

• above - below
• before - after
• behind - in front of
• buy - sell
• emigrate - immigrate
• employer - employee
• give - receive/take
• husband - wife
• male - female
• parent - child
• singular - plural
• speak - listen
• teacher - student
• winner - loser

This group, in which the words are not opposites, but the converse of each other in the context, is the type of antonym that the pair imply and infer is.

Understanding Imply and Infer as Antonyms

In the world of communications, there are different levels. Material can be out in the open, literal, and explicit. Or it can be communicated more subtly. A writer or speaker who implies is entering this more subtle area.

Imply came into English through Old French and Middle English and can be traced back to Latin implicare, meaning “to entangle or unite.” It is pronounced /ihm PLY/. Imply can mean to communicate indirectly, using innuendo, hint, or tone, rather than direct language, as a way of constructing meaning. It can also mean “to be a necessary consequence of.” Here are example sentences:

The speaker's tone implied that he was being facetious.

The shift in the allocation of resources implies that the company is developing another product line quite different from their existing merchandise.

It is the first meaning of imply that is generally confused with infer.

Infer came directly from the Latin inferre, meaning “to bring to bear.” It is pronounced /ihn FUHR/. Infer's  first two meanings are: “to conclude based on evidence or premises” - such as in math or science settings and “to guess or surmise” - a more general, all purpose meaning. Here are examples:

It was Sherlock Holmes's practice to infer conclusions from the evidence found at crime scenes and in the reports of witnesses and victims.

I inferred from the speaker's tone that he was being facetious.

You can now see from the definitions and by comparing the final example sentence for infer with the first example for imply that they are, indeed, opposites sides of the same process: what the speaker or writer implies, the audience must infer in order for full communication to take place. So far so good. Now comes the tricky bit.

Infer as Its Own Antonym

There are some words in English that have meanings that are, in one of the three ways described above, antonyms of each other. Here are some examples:

• cleave - to bond together               A man should cleave to his wife.
• cleave - to cut apart                      The butcher cleaved the pork ribs into portions.
• fast - firmly fixed                           The doorknob wouldn't turn: it was stuck fast.
• fast - moving quickly                      Jarvis made a fast exit.
• peer - an equal                             In the US, a jury of one's peers is a fundamental concept.
• peer - a noble                              The system of peers creates a class hierarchy.

The third and fourth meaning of infer place it in this group. They are: “to lead to a conclusion” and “to imply.” The fourth meaning is most responsible for confusion, because it allows situations like the following. The situation is that Person A is a colleague of Person B, who has replaced Bob.

Person A: I'm sure sorry Bob left.

Person B: Are you inferring that I'm incompetent? (meaning 4: implying)

Person A: Are you inferring that my sadness over Bob's departure is necessarily linked to disappointment in your performance? (meaning 2)

This is not a prescriptive essay, but I do note that using infer in the third and fourth senses is more likely to create confused communication than using imply and infer as relational or converse antonyms and restricting the use of infer to the first two meanings.

Distinguishing Imply and Infer

How you distinguish imply  and infer will depend on whether you plan to restrict your use of infer. If you do not, then the situation is too complicated for a simple mnemonic. If you do, then you may wish to use this:

In a single communication situation, the speaker or writer begins by implying and inferring can only come after because inference is done on the basis of the implication. Link this to the words by noting the m in imply and the n in infer and recollecting that the two actions appear in alphabetical order as well as time order: imply before infer; m before n.