Other forms: hints, hinted, hinting
To hint is to suggest something without saying it outright. Hint at a change, she hinted as much, he was hinting.
The verb takes at — hint at something — and that is the pattern to learn. As a noun, a hint is the suggestion itself: drop a hint, take a hint, a broad hint. A hint is also a small helpful tip — household hints — and a very small amount of something: a hint of lemon, a hint of grey. Note that take a hint means to understand an indirect message, and is usually said to somebody who has not.
1verbhintTo suggest something without saying it outright.
“She hinted at a change and said nothing more for a month.”
2nounindirectAn indirect suggestion.
“He dropped a hint about it twice and nobody took it.”
3nounsmallA very small amount of something.
“There is a hint of orange in it somewhere.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
hint is an indirect suggestion.
Old English hentan meant to seize or grasp. A hint is something you catch rather than something you are handed, which is exactly why hints can be missed.
Proto-Germanic
*hantijaną
Proto-West Germanic
*hantijan
Old English
hentan — to seize, grasp
Middle English
hinten
English, today
hint
Built from
From Middle English hinten, hynten, variant of henten (“to lay hold of, catch”), from Old English hentan (“to seize, grasp”), from Proto-West Germanic hantijan, from Proto-Germanic hantijaną. a doublet of hent. Related also to hunt.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA