Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The aspect of meaning that a speaker conveys, implies, or suggests without directly expressing. Although the utterance “Can you pass the salt?” is literally a request for information about one's ability to pass salt, the understood implicature is a request for salt.
  • noun The process by which such a meaning is conveyed, implied, or suggested. In saying “Some dogs are mammals,” the speaker conveys by implicature that not all dogs are mammals.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun pragmatics An implied meaning that is not expressed directly.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Coined by Paul Grice.

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