hint

1 an indirect suggestion; "not a breath of scandal ever touched her" [syn: intimation, breath]

2 a slight indication [syn: clue]

3 a slight but appreciable addition; "this dish could use a touch of garlic" [syn: touch, tinge, mite, pinch, jot, speck, soupcon]

4 a just detectable amount; "he speaks French with a trace of an accent" [syn: trace, suggestion]

5 an indication of potential opportunity; "he got a tip on the stock market"; "a good lead for a job" [syn: tip, lead, steer, confidential information, wind] v : drop a hint; intimate by a hint [syn: suggest]

English

Etymology

From obsolete hent, from Old English hentan "to seize," from Proto-Germanic *khantijanan.

Pronunciation

• /hɪnt/, /hInt/
• Rhymes: -ɪnt

Noun

1. A clue.

   I needed a hint to complete the crossword.

2. A small, barely detectable amount of.

   This entry requires a hint of irony.

3. Information in a computer-based font that suggests how the outlines of the font's glyphs should be distorted in order to produce, at specific sizes, a visually appealing pixel-based rendering. Also known as hinting.

   This font does not scale well; at small point sizes it has no hinting at all, and the hints that it has for the 10- and 12-point letter 'g' still need work.

Translations

• Finnish: vihje (1)
• Japanese: ヒント (hinto) (1)

Verb

1. To deliberately imply, indirectly suggest, or provide a clue.

   She hinted at the possibility of a recount of the votes.

2. To develop and add hints to a font.

   The typographer worked all day on hinting her new font so it would look good on computer screens.

Translations

• Finnish: vihjata (1), vihjailla (1)
• French: allusion (1)
• Italian: indizio, aiuto, dritta
• Japanese: ほのめかす (honomekasu)(1)
• Spanish: indicio (1), pista (1), pizca (2)

Hungarian

Verb

hint

1. to scatter

   A cukrász porcukrot hint a süteményre.

Hint can refer to:

• Hardware Information Navigational Tool (HINT)
• Hierarchical INTegration, a computer benchmark.
• Hint (musician), musician Jonathan James, from Sussex, UK.
• Font hinting, a process for optimizing the rasterization of vectors
• Nord-Trøndelag University College

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