intimation

Noun

1. The act of intimating.
2. The thing intimated.
3. Announcement; declaration.
   • They made an edict with an intimation that whosoever killed a stork, should be banished. - 1603, Plutarch, translated by Philemon Holland, The Philosophie, Commonlie Called, The Morals […], London: […] Arnold Hatfield,...
4. A hint; an obscure or indirect suggestion or notice; a remote or ambiguous reference.
   • Without mentioning the king of England, or giving the least intimation that he was sent by him. - 1679, Gilbert Burnet, The History of the Reformation of the Church of England:
   • At length, perchance, the immaterial heaven will appear as much higher to the American mind, and the intimations that star it as much brighter. - 1862, Henry David Thoreau, Walking:
   • And actually I had important intimations to communicate as he faced the end. But intimations weren't much use. - 1976 September, Saul Bellow, Humboldt’s Gift, New York, N.Y.: Avon Books, →ISBN, page 378: