read between the lines
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
Understand the implied or hidden meaning
Literally: interpret text not explicitly written
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Although both climbs currently bear the grade E1 5b, a little reading between the lines reveals them to be less comparable in difficulty than this might indicate.
The shares jumped 5p to 75p on the figures but reading between the lines the group's remaining operations are not exactly dyanmic.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “read between the lines” mean?
Understand the implied or hidden meaning Literally: interpret text not explicitly written
Is “read between the lines” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.