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This may come as a surprise, but inkling has not a drop to do with ink, whether of squid, tattoo, or any other variety. Originating in English in the early 16th century, inkling comes instead from Middle English yngkiling, meaning “whisper or mention,” and perhaps further back from the verb inclen, meaning “to hint at.” An early sense of the word meant “a faint perceptible sound or undertone” or “rumor,” but now people usually use the word to refer to a vague notion someone has (“had an inkling they would be there”), or to a hint of something present (“a conversation with not even an inkling of anger”). One related word you might not have heard of is the rare verb inkle, a back-formation of inkling that in some British English dialects can mean “to utter or communicate in an undertone or whisper, to hint, give a hint of” or “to have an idea or notion of.” (Inkle is also a noun referring to “a colored linen tape or braid woven on a very narrow loom and used for trimming” but etymologists don’t have an inkling of where that inkle came from.)
Examples of inkling in a Sentence
Lillian Ali, Smithsonian Magazine, 10 June 2025
This is a mom of whom my sister and I had no inkling.
—Bob Mondello, NPR, 8 May 2025
Democrats aren't the clear beneficiaries of what modest inklings of buyer's remorse there are.
—Tom Rogers and Susan Del Percio, MSNBC Newsweek, 20 May 2025
Yet despair shrouds Vuong’s characters, immigrants and other outsiders for whom the American Dream isn’t an inkling.
—Leigh Haber, Los Angeles Times, 12 May 2025
See All Example Sentences for inkling
Cite this Entry
“Inkling.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/inkling. Accessed 18 Jun. 2025.
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