inkling
noun

- a feeling that something is true or likely to happen, although you are not certain

Cambridge Dictionary

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ORIGIN

Although it would be easy to have an inkling that this word has something to do with ink, there is no evidence that the two terms are even remotely connected.

Middle English had the word inkle for instance. It was a noun that referred to a linen tape or thread, as well as a verb meaning to whisper. It was this latter definition that led some linguists to speculate that inkling stems from the Middle English inkle. Again, there is no proof.

Herbert Coleridge, one of the founders of what became the Oxford Dictionary, thought that inkle sounded like the Old Icelandic ymta “to mutter.”

Others believe that inkling is from the French and English “inclination”, which refers to a feeling that you want to do a particular thing, or the fact that you prefer or are more likely to do a particular thing.

Still others think it resulted from the so-called false splitting of the Middle English “ningkiling,” which is the process of changing a word over time through pronunciation. In this case, the theory is that the “n” was eliminated.

All of this only proves that we haven’t the least inkling about the origin of the word inkling :-)

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SYNONYMS

apprehension, conception, feeling, forewarning, funny feeling, foreboding, gut feeling, hint, hunch, idea, impression, indication, intimation, intuition, notion, portent, premonition, prenotion, presentiment, prognostication, sneaking suspicion, suspicion, vague idea, vague feeling

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SMUGGLE OWAD into an English conversation today, say something like:

“Sorry Jim, but I have no INKLING about when the meeting is supposed to begin.”

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