Inkling

[Dr. Goodword]

• inkling •

Pronunciation: ing-kling • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: 1. The slightest hint, a glimmer, a vague intimation, the faintest idea. 2. (Dialectal) A hankering, a slight desire, an inclination.

Notes: No, this word does not mean "ink spot" or have anything to do with ink; it is related to nick (see Word History). It is an absolute lexical orphan except for the plural form: inklings.

In Play: The idea behind today's Good Word is faintness of the idea: "When he pointed what he thought was a pistol at the intruder, he didn't have an inkling that what he was holding was a cigarette lighter." However, in some dialects it may refer to a slight desire: "Freddie didn't have an inkling to go abroad and take the chance of a day without peanut butter."

Word History: The earliest record of the word was as a ningkiling "hint, intimation", which was an expansion of Middle English nikking "a hint, slight indication". A ningkiling was reanalyzed as an inkiling, just as a narange was reanalyzed as an orange. Nikking was the gerundive for the Middle English verb nikken "to mark for correction", derived from nik "a small notch, tally", which ended up in Modern English as nick, as in 'the nick of time'. Nik seems semantically and phonologically related to notch, but there is no current explanation of the difference in vowels. (I have an inkling that we should now thank Rob Towart for his suggestion of today's whale of a Good Word.)

[Perry Lassiter]

During the 1930s at Oxford, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams -- remarkable friends, writers, and scholars -- met regularly to discuss philosophy and literature and to read aloud from their own works in progress. Calling themselves the Inklings, their circle grew. Notably Lewis's brother Warren, Owen Barfield, and RL Green. Broke up around 1949 when Lewis went to Cambridge.

[LukeJavan8]

Thanks for the reminder, Perry, I knew they called themselves
the "inklings".

[Pattie]

And then there were The Inklings, an informal Oxford literary circle founded in the early 1930s and lasting until 1949. Two of the more famous inklings were CS Lewis and JRR Tolkein.

[Pattie]

Oops, sorry, folks. Should have checked before firing off my post about the Inklings. Of course you knew that.

[Perry Lassiter]

Better an extra than miss something…

[Philip Hudson]

I believe the Philosophical Inklings chose the name because it hinted at a literary bent that used ink to express itself as well as suggesting there might not be an inkling of truth in what they were espousing. Hence it was a sort of pun. The Oxford inklings themselves were an amazing group of people.

[Perry Lassiter]

Rcently finished Lewis's collected letters. Also have Tolkien's which I plan to start soon.