I had no inkling
I had no idea or suspicion
TRANSLATION
no inkling = keine Ahnung haben --- GOOGLE INDEX no inkling: approximately 400,000 Google hits
STATISTICS
IN THE PRESS
Members of Ms. Mahmood's family said they had absolutely NO INKLING of her radicalization.
(New York Times)
---
Hard though this may be to believe, I had NO INKLING of his political views in all the years I worked with him.
(The Guardian)
(New York Times)
---
Hard though this may be to believe, I had NO INKLING of his political views in all the years I worked with him.
(The Guardian)
Did you
know?
inkling
noun
- a feeling that something is true or likely to happen, although you are not certain
(Cambridge Dictionary)
---
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 (Cambridge Dictionary).
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 have not the least inkling about the origin of some words.
---
SYNONYMS
hunch, idea, impression, indication, notion, suspicion
---
SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"I have no inkling when the meeting is supposed to begin."
noun
- a feeling that something is true or likely to happen, although you are not certain
(Cambridge Dictionary)
---
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 (Cambridge Dictionary).
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 have not the least inkling about the origin of some words.
---
SYNONYMS
hunch, idea, impression, indication, notion, suspicion
---
SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"I have no inkling when the meeting is supposed to begin."
