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inkling
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  • He had no inkling what this meant.†   (source)
  • "I mean, don't you have any inkling of the reasons for all this?" asked Ford.†   (source)
  • I think Pim told me because he, who knows the "intimate secrets" of so many others, needed to express his own feelings for once; Pim never talks about himself, and I don't think Margot has any inkling of what he's been through.†   (source)
  • She was my first inkling that women over forty—women maybe not all that great-looking to start with—could be sexy.†   (source)
  • They must have had at least an inkling of what would await them at the square, because you can see them trying to act evasively.†   (source)
  • If Tim had any inkling of the effect Savannah had on me or that I'd be visiting again the next day, he gave no indication.†   (source)
  • As much as she held me in contempt, she may never have had any real inkling of my true helplessness.†   (source)
  • Anticipation tingled through my hands and feet, for I had an inkling of what this would be about.†   (source)
  • How ghastly it would be, I thought, shuddering, if Charlie had even the slightest inkling of exactly what I did like.†   (source)
  • It was also the first inkling we had of the rise from the ashes of Osama bin Laden's followers.†   (source)
  • Bill, who assumed he and Rina were both saving themselves for marriage, had not the slightest inkling that she was, ahem, involved with Jeff.†   (source)
  • Kathy had no real inkling that they had made a great impression on Yuko, but Yuko was captivated.†   (source)
  • If so, Pari had an inkling she'd done so more as a jealous lover than a protective mother.†   (source)
  • For the first time I began to get an inkling of what she'd been talking a bout all along.†   (source)
  • She only had an inkling of the goddess's powers, but the thought that there was something more powerful than her was terrifying.†   (source)
  • You had no inkling such creatures existed before?†   (source)
  • I can tell you of the waves and water, but you don't begin to get an inkling of its size until you stand on the shore.†   (source)
  • Do you have even the first inkling of how much the Guild charges for military transport?†   (source)
  • Since I've become a parent this is even harder because now I have some inkling of how parents feel when their child is sick.†   (source)
  • This was my first inkling of the existence of Phaedrus, many years ago.†   (source)
  • But as they were walking from the house towards the Orangery— where the guardians had their living quarters—Tommy began to get an inkling this was something different.†   (source)
  • Now her mother seemed to know the truth, or to have some inkling of it.†   (source)
  • Yet it was the French Revolution that gave us the first inklings of feminism.†   (source)
  • One began to get an inkling of what law was about only when the time came to practice it.†   (source)
  • But I myself didn't cry about Papa, or have any inkling of what was wrenching Mama's heart, until the next time I saw him, almost a year later.†   (source)
  • It dawned upon Eragon that in order to guess Sloan's true name, he must understand the butcher better than he did himself, for he had not the slightest inkling what his own might be.†   (source)
  • I missed them a great deal during those days, long before I had any inkling that I would spend decades apart from them.†   (source)
  • He would have flown home that night if he had perceived any inkling of distress in her.†   (source)
  • INDEED, WITH LITTLE idea of how it would all turn out and no inkling of the coming political storm around refugee resettlement in Clarkston, Luma was directing her life wholeheartedly toward the refugee community there.†   (source)
  • The phenomenon of laughter is unknown to animals; though it is possible that dogs and elephants may have some inkling of it.†   (source)
  • Last month, you began to get just an inkling of the pride and satisfaction that can come from doing a good job even at the most menial task.†   (source)
  • She had been aware of his preoccupations, whereas he had had no inkling of her intentions.†   (source)
  • He wondered if the Army had had an inkling of that, and whether that was the reason he'd been sent out here solo.†   (source)
  • They were the first inkling I had that my mother might care for me.†   (source)
  • Very long, indeed, as I haven't the slightest inkling where to start.†   (source)
  • It was then he had his first inkling of what it means to suffer.†   (source)
  • Even the probationer began to show the first inkling of Sound Nursing Sense.†   (source)
  • If Jake had an inkling of what was coming, he would have stalled some more with Ian, burned some clock, and dodged another ambush, at least until the next day.†   (source)
  • And recall how during his journey he was stopped by the strange figure of a man whose pitted features revealed no inkling of whether he was black or white ….†   (source)
  • Björck never had any inkling that Salander's orgy of murder might involve him personally—that one of her victims had been a media swine who was about to expose him to the whole of Sweden.†   (source)
  • In such a landscape there was dislocation both of time and space and Annie felt the inkling of what could, if she were to let it, become panic.†   (source)
  • But neither one has an inkling about the calamity that is now just eight months away.†   (source)
  • It is a hopeless quest, the more hopeless because you have no inkling of what an impossible task you have chosen to undertake.†   (source)
  • WITH Nt) INKLING of what was to come, I left there on top of the world.†   (source)
  • It will take ages to restore, and they've no inkling that we're already making use of it.†   (source)
  • You don't even begin to get an inkling of it until you're much older than you are now.†   (source)
  • Their first inkling came when her father phoned and asked if they had any idea of Amy's whereabouts.†   (source)
  • One of Ronnie's biggest problems when he was younger was that he snorted and smoked so much candy he couldn't think straight, so Gus told him if he got so much as an inkling that Ronnie was using, he'd be gone.†   (source)
  • "Don't you think I'd have told you if I had the slightest inkling of why this happened?"†   (source)
  • We'd have got an inkling of it if he was — an official statement from his ministry alluding to a proposed commission of some sort.†   (source)
  • The only inkling Hooch got was something one of the brawlers said.†   (source)
  • But there was one matter of which I had no inkling.†   (source)
  • What had happened after that was still a blur; and as to what had happened before, I had no inkling whatsoever.†   (source)
  • The Pole worked as fiercely as ever and seemed to have no inkling that he was about to be fired.†   (source)
  • His background and life were investigated from top to bottom, and his constituents and colleagues pursued him throughout Washington to gain some inkling of his opinion.†   (source)
  • Harry saw Yaxley's head turn, saw an inkling of truth dawn on that brutish face.†   (source)
  • He looked at Ruth May, who seemed to have no inkling they were discussing the fate of her life.†   (source)
  • Julian, do you have any inkling of what I might be talking about?†   (source)
  • Right then, in that too-long beat of silence, I got the first inkling that something was wrong.†   (source)
  • I sat there for several minutes with my head bowed before the inkling of a good idea came to me.†   (source)
  • He had a distant inkling that he would regret this.†   (source)
  • Dany had no inkling why anyone would call him Frog.†   (source)
  • This was my first inkling that things might not go as calmly as I had imagined.†   (source)
  • Any inkling of trouble and you'll be sorry, Mr. Franklin.†   (source)
  • I had no inkling such a thing was possible.†   (source)
  • Nurse's face had given Tyrion his first inkling.†   (source)
  • Crabbe and Goyle were gawping at Malfoy; apparently they had had no inkling of any plans to move on to bigger and better things.†   (source)
  • All he knew was that he was not the only person in the room who had an inkling of what Lord Voldemort being back might mean.†   (source)
  • We could never happen, Jeremy and I. If he had even the dimmest inkling of my existence, he had never given a clue.†   (source)
  • San Piedro fishermen, in 1954, were apt to pay attention to signs and portents other men had no inkling of.†   (source)
  • It was not as though he was really surprised, thought Harry, as he wrestled with a thorny vine intent upon throttling him; he had had an inkling that this might happen sooner or later.†   (source)
  • But turning in place on the Place de la Concorde, seeing the Arc de Triomphe, and the Eiffel Tower, and the Tuileries, and the cars and Vespas zipping around the great obelisk, Sofia had an inkling of what her father had been trying to say.†   (source)
  • He stood there looking at the destruction of the harbor and knew he had something inviolable that other men had no inkling of and at the same time he had nothing.†   (source)
  • I got some inkling of this from Anatole long ago, I suppose, when he explained why he translated Father's sermons.†   (source)
  • These fugitive dignitaries are both from the Batetela tribe and learned French in mission schools, but have no inkling of how to talk to the Kwango tribesmen who fish the rivers east of Léopoldville.†   (source)
  • He had no inkling of the storm outside except when Abel Martinson led him up the stairs—handcuffed for his journey to Judge Fielding's courtroom—so that emerging into the twilight of the courthouse's ground floor he felt the wind shaking the building.†   (source)
  • He has no inkling.†   (source)
  • Brian had an inkling.†   (source)
  • Her face was a mixture of worry and defiance—the first inkling I had of Jane's kindness and concern for those less fortunate.†   (source)
  • No inkling.†   (source)
  • Sansa Stark had vanished on the night King Joffrey died, and if anyone had seen her since, or had any inkling where she might have gone, they were not talking.†   (source)
  • He spoke very slowly, the way people often speak to not-very-bright children and foreigners, although I'm positive that Mr. Armistead had no inkling that the Two Two family came from any farther away than the Cherokee Nation.†   (source)
  • Or at least have had an inkling?†   (source)
  • Eragon remembered that Arya had asked the same question yesterday, and he began to have an inkling of what she had meant: the queen left no room to maneuver.†   (source)
  • Those touchy mediocrities who sit trembling lest someone's work prove greater than their own-they have no inkling of the loneliness that comes when you reach the top.†   (source)
  • Of the infinite variety of angles and intersections that make a smile, language has no inkling: not only no words, but not even numbers.†   (source)
  • "Once she'd loved my filet mignon, my carnivore inklings," Dexter continued, "but now she was a vegan princess, living off of beans.†   (source)
  • She had little appreciation for how unusual a Muslim woman with the name Luma Hassan Mufleh would seem to most southerners, and certainly no inkling of how much more complicated attitudes toward Muslims would become a couple of years into the future, after the attacks on September 11.†   (source)
  • He would have bet the Indian was not twenty yards away from him, and yet he had no inkling of precisely where he was.†   (source)
  • Sitting on the toilet, she wondered who it was they'd been arguing about and got a first uneasy inkling that perhaps she knew.†   (source)
  • Jaime wondered if they had any inkling what they'd been eating, and decided it was better not to inquire.†   (source)
  • Surely Red had some inkling—or his sister, more likely, since women were supposed to be more curious about such things.†   (source)
  • Every now and then, over the past few hours, Annie had looked down there at Tom and Grace and felt just an inkling of something that, if she didn't know herself better, she might have mistaken for jealousy.†   (source)
  • I had an inkling as to why he had come.†   (source)
  • Then it had only been a matter of establishing a campsite, assembling his men as they came ashore and moving quickly, before the local lordlings had any inkling of their peril.†   (source)
  • If he is to give everybody a breathing spell, financially speaking, he's got to put into operation a certain emergency program of which you have some inkling.†   (source)
  • The boy had no inkling of any concept of morality; it had been bred out of him by his college; this had left him an odd frankness, naive and cynical at once, like the innocence of a savage.†   (source)
  • But she didn't, so I decided to seize what seemed the advantage I'd obtained in this game I didn't understand with players I didn't know for stakes I had no inkling of.†   (source)
  • And therein lay one (although not the only one) of the prime causes of her devastating guilt—the guilt she concealed from Nathan and which, with no inkling of its nature or its actuality, he so often cruelly inflamed.†   (source)
  • Because she had told me in such detail of the awful weekend in Connecticut the previous autumn, I may have been the only person knowing them both who had an inkling of what went on in their room where they met for the last time.†   (source)
  • Emotionally and intellectually he was the romantic inheritor of the Germanic culture of another century, of a time irreparably gone and fallen away, and thus he had no inkling of how impossible it would be to try to ingratiate himself in his antiquated costumery within the corridors of this stainless-steel, jackbooted, mammoth modern power, the first technocratic state, with its Regulierungen and Gesetzverordnungen, its electrified filing-card systems and classification procedures, its…†   (source)
  • It had all happened too fast, this sudden gratuitous charity, for Sophie to make immediate sense of it, but soon she had an inkling and she was truly alarmed—alarmed as much by the way Wilhelmine had all but pounced upon her (for now she realized this is what she had done), lurking like a tarantula while she waited for her to emerge from the cellar, as by the precipitate offering of the rather ridiculous largess itself.†   (source)
  • And nobody had an inkling about — about the other things, so you mustn't worry.'†   (source)
  • As for the way to true manhood, the way to the immortals, he has, it is true, an inkling of it and starts upon it now and then for a few hesitating steps and pays for them with much suffering and many pangs of loneliness.†   (source)
  • Nevertheless there still exist towns and countries where people have now and then an inkling of something different.†   (source)
  • So long as none of you had an inkling, we could all have managed, but considering how we're fixed it wouldn't seem very neighborly to play the high hat with you now.†   (source)
  • I don't think He has the least inkling of that high and austere mystery to which we rise in the Miserific Vision.†   (source)
  • The significance of what he had said seeped into my mind slowly, word by word, each bursting like a bubble into an inkling of realization as I stood staring at him.†   (source)
  • And, with her basket and her parasol, there she was again, ten minutes later, giving out a sense of being ready, of being equipped for a jaunt, which, however, she must interrupt for a moment, as they passed the tennis lawn, to ask Mr. Carmichael, who was basking with his yellow cat's eyes ajar, so that like a cat's they seemed to reflect the branches moving or the clouds passing, but to give no inkling of any inner thoughts or emotion whatsoever, if he wanted anything.†   (source)
  • Few of us have any inkling of the sense of the rite of baptism, which was our initiation into our Church.†   (source)
  • Long ago I had a vague inkling of a machine—'†   (source)
  • All men, however highly educated, retain some superstitious inklings.†   (source)
  • I've only got an inkling of what I want.'†   (source)
  • My double gave me an inkling of his thoughts by saying: "My father's a parson in Norfolk.†   (source)
  • Anyhow, it will give you an inkling of our—mysteries.†   (source)
  • She had not the slightest inkling of any infidelities.†   (source)
  • An inkling of untoward deeds on the part of Hurstwood had come.†   (source)
  • At first I knew not what to make of this; but soon an inkling of the truth occurred to me.†   (source)
  • When a poor man is to lose his only child, he likes to have an inkling of it beforehand.†   (source)
  • I had an inkling from the first what he came for.†   (source)
  • It may be that they had an inkling of the sentiments in which she had been brought up, for none of them manifested a very lively desire for her company; indeed, the question threatened to remain unsolved till Mrs. Peniston with a sigh announced: "I'll try her for a year."†   (source)
  • They had no inkling of such a patience.†   (source)
  • Although she had some inkling of the course Stewart and his men were to pursue, she was not by any means prepared for the indifference she saw.†   (source)
  • The first hour's ride brought little change in weather or scenery, but it gave Helen an inkling of what she must endure if they kept that up all day.†   (source)
  • Supposing now any one of those whom he found gathered here—Nadine Harriet, Perley Haynes, Violet Taylor, Jill Trumbull, Bella, Bertine, and Sondra, should gain the least inkling of the scene he had just witnessed?†   (source)
  • I felt the first inkling of a thing that presently grew quite clear in my mind, that oppressed me for many days, a sense of dethronement, a persuasion that I was no longer a master, but an animal among the animals, under the Martian heel.†   (source)
  • Bess had no inkling that he had been absent from camp nearly all night, and only remarked solicitously that he appeared to be more tired than usual, and more in the need of sleep.†   (source)
  • Jurgis wondered who had first thought of it; and when he was told that it was a common thing for men to do in America, he got the first inkling of a meaning in the phrase "a free country."†   (source)
  • His wife had some inkling of his plans; but she had such a fear of her husband—a fear founded upon brutal ill-treatment—that she dare not write to warn the man whom she knew to be in danger.†   (source)
  • In view of the marked contrast between the persons of the twain, it is more than probable that when the Master-at-arms in the scene last given applied to the sailor the proverb Handsome is as handsome does, he there let escape an ironic inkling, not caught by the young sailors who heard it, as to what it was that had first moved him against Billy, namely, his significant personal beauty.†   (source)
  • This bold upheaval of rock and earth now gave at close hand an inkling of the wild and inhospitable nature of the Staked Plain.†   (source)
  • But they should at least give him some inkling of just how hard a struggle it is and how much work it is for me to defend him.†   (source)
  • Marguerite Blakeney was in her most brilliant mood, and surely not a soul in that crowded supper-room had even an inkling of the terrible struggle which was raging within her heart.†   (source)
  • As for me, I began to have an inkling.†   (source)
  • He did not stop to analyze his own emotions, but he had an inkling that once this strange situation was ended he would have food for reflection.†   (source)
  • Never, little Miles—no, never—have you given me an inkling of anything that MAY have happened there.†   (source)
  • From himself too, probably, many times when she had glibly uttered such words as explain a delay or justify an alteration of the hour fixed for a meeting, those moments must have hidden, without his having the least inkling of it at the time, an engagement that she had had with some other man, some man to whom she had said: "I need only tell Swann that my dress wasn't ready, or that my cab came late.†   (source)
  • Why, not even Edward Ashburnham, who was, after all more intimate with her than I was, had an inkling of the truth.†   (source)
  • Unwilling to accommodate himself to such failure, he struggled for a while to find a pleasure that either was totally denied him or simply teased him with a distant inkling of itself, and finally out of weary disgust he tossed the cigar aside.†   (source)
  • Maybe I can give you an inkling of it.†   (source)
  • She gained some inkling of the character of Hanson's life when, half asleep, she looked out into the dinning-room at six o'clock and saw him silently finishing his breakfast.†   (source)
  • CHAPTER XLII When Charles left Ducie Street he had caught the first train home, but had no inkling of the newest development until late at night.†   (source)
  • All he passed stopped and began staring up the road and down, and interrogating one another with an inkling of discomfort for the reason of his haste.†   (source)
  • It was the coal cellar of the place, and when I saw the work he had spent a week upon—it was a burrow scarcely ten yards long, which he designed to reach to the main drain on Putney Hill—I had my first inkling of the gulf between his dreams and his powers.†   (source)
  • He reddened a little, wondering whether she had some inkling of his secret; he turned away his eyes uneasily.†   (source)
  • His fine taste had given him an inkling that Andalusia was too soft and sensuous, a little vulgar even, to satisfy his ardour; and his imagination dwelt more willingly among the wind-swept distances of Castile and the rugged magnificence of Aragon and Leon.†   (source)
  • —she told me afterwards that, at that speech of mine, for the first time she had a vague inkling of the tragedy that was to follow so soon—although the girl had lived with them for eight years or so: "Oh, I'm not thinking of saying that he is not the best of husbands, or that he is not very fond of the girl."†   (source)
  • He had a vague inkling that many things had combined, things that she felt though was unconscious of, the intoxication of the air and the hops and the night, the healthy instincts of the natural woman, a tenderness that overflowed, and an affection that had in it something maternal and something sisterly; and she gave all she had to give because her heart was full of charity.†   (source)
  • If there had been anything particularly grand in his origin—if he were made of some superior clay—I presume I should have got some inkling of it.†   (source)
  • Dear mama, there, as soon as she got an inkling of the business, found out that it was of an immoral tendency.†   (source)
  • Had you any inkling of all this?†   (source)
  • And having caught some inkling of our story, the young people about us—as young as you and I are now, Kate—may come to us for sympathy, and pour distresses which hope and inexperience could scarcely feel enough for, into the compassionate ears of the old bachelor brother and his maiden sister.'†   (source)
  • Perhaps some inkling of this paradox, even in the unquiet days of the Bureau, helped the bayonets allay an opposition to human training which still to-day lies smouldering in the South, but not flaming.†   (source)
  • Put the case that he took her in, and that he kept down the old, wild, violent nature whenever he saw an inkling of its breaking out, by asserting his power over her in the old way.†   (source)
  • And you need not exult over him, good brother of the Southern States; for we have some inklings that many of you, under similar circumstances, would not do much better.†   (source)
  • And as it was always Mr. Sedley's maxim not to talk about money matters before women, they had no inkling of the misfortunes that were in store for them until the unhappy old gentleman was forced to make gradual confessions.†   (source)
  • Deerslayer got an inkling of this warrior's want of reputation by the injunctions that he had received from the seniors, who, indeed, would have objected to his appearing in the arena, at all, but for an influence derived from his father; an aged warrior of great merit, who was then in the lodges of the tribe.†   (source)
  • "It's the heartland of the blacks who occupy all Malaysia," Mr. de Rienzi has said; and I hadn't the foggiest inkling that sailors' luck was about to bring me face to face with these daunting Andaman aborigines.†   (source)
  • His expression was severe and uncompromising, especially with the peasants of Mokroe, but he had the power of assuming the most obsequious countenance, when he had an inkling that it was to his interest.†   (source)
  • Wildeve had not received an inkling of the fact before, and a sudden expression of pain overspread his face.†   (source)
  • It will be remembered that already, during his preceding escape, he had made a mysterious trip thither, or somewhere in that neighborhood, of which the law had gathered an inkling.†   (source)
  • There was an inkling of suspicion in Mr Flintwinch's face that he might be nothing, as he swaggered out of his chair (it was characteristic of this man, as it is of all men similarly marked, that whatever he did, he overdid, though it were sometimes by only a hairsbreadth), and approached to take his leave of Mrs Clennam.†   (source)
  • Now he is setting up for being advanced, not that he has an inkling of anything, but, of course, I encourage him.†   (source)
  • That's how it always is with these Schilleresque noble hearts; till the last moment every goose is a swan with them, till the last moment, they hope for the best and will see nothing wrong, and although they have an inkling of the other side of the picture, yet they won't face the truth till they are forced to; the very thought of it makes them shiver; they thrust the truth away with both hands, until the man they deck out in false colours puts a fool's cap on them with his own hands.†   (source)
  • Mr. Shelby in vain tried to shout directions from the balcony, and Mrs. Shelby from her chamber window alternately laughed and wondered,—not without some inkling of what lay at the bottom of all this confusion.†   (source)
  • All these revolutions were accomplished within him, without his family obtaining an inkling of the case.†   (source)
  • Some of them, indeed, do here and there show some feeling for those whom the history-books call 'poor,' and of the misery of whose lives we have some inkling; but presently they give it up, and towards the end of the story we must be contented to see the hero and heroine living happily in an island of bliss on other people's troubles; and that after a long series of sham troubles (or mostly sham) of their own making, illustrated by dreary introspective nonsense about their feelings and…†   (source)
  • "You see, gentlemen, joking apart"—Mitya lifted his eyes and looked firmly at them both—"I had an inkling from the first that we should come to loggerheads at this point.†   (source)
  • He did, indeed, catch an inkling of illegitimacy, the history of Fantine had always seemed to him equivocal; but what was the use of talking about that? in order to cause himself to be paid for his silence?†   (source)
  • Alyosha had once noted with innocent amusement that, in spite of her illness, Madame Hohlakov had begun to be rather dressy—top-knots, ribbons, loose wrappers, had made their appearance, and he had an inkling of the reason, though he dismissed such ideas from his mind as frivolous.†   (source)
  • It was the first inkling of the revelations that were in store for me this weekend.†   (source)
  • …crowding, jostling out of the sea
    and flopped down in rows, basking along the surf.
    At high noon the old man emerged from the waves
    and found his fat-fed seals and made his rounds,
    counting them off, counting us the first four,
    but he had no inkling of all the fraud afoot.
    Then down he lay and slept, but we with a battle-cry,
    we rushed him, flung our arms around him—he'd lost nothing,
    the old rascal, none of his cunning quick techniques!
    First he shifted into a great bearded…†   (source)
  • If he had any inkling of such a thing, I wouldna have lived to be seventeen, let alone achieve the ripe old age of three-and-twenty.†   (source)
  • My business experience has taught me to be chary of committinganything ofa confidentialnature to anymore concrete medium than speech, and my extreme precaution in this instance should give you some inkling of its value.†   (source)
  • Then nay no I have an inkling.†   (source)
  • …and wood-men with their clear untrimm'd faces, The beauty of independence, departure, actions that rely on themselves, The American contempt for statutes and ceremonies, the boundless impatience of restraint, The loose drift of character, the inkling through random types, the solidification; The butcher in the slaughter-house, the hands aboard schooners and sloops, the raftsman, the pioneer, Lumbermen in their winter camp, daybreak in the woods, stripes of snow on the limbs of trees,…†   (source)
  • If the Duke be guiltless, 'tis full of woe; yet I can give you inkling Of an ensuing evil, if it fall, Greater than this.†   (source)
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