In pragmatics, scalar implicature, or quantity implicature,[1] is an implicature that attributes an implicit meaning beyond the explicit or literal meaning of an utterance, and which suggests that the utterer had a reason for not using a more informative or stronger term on the same scale. The choice of the weaker characterization suggests that, as far as the speaker knows, none of the stronger characterizations in the scale holds. This is commonly seen in the use of 'some' to suggest the meaning 'not all', even though 'some' is logically consistent with 'all'.[2] If Bill says 'I have some of my money in cash', this utterance suggests to a hearer (though the sentence uttered does not logically imply it) that Bill does not have all his money in cash.
Moreover, the truth of a sentence like "It's a pretty big thing in itself if I recover the outlay." with an inherently scalar predicate allows, in principle, for the truthful application of a predicate higher up on the scale, but will, at the same time, carry a generalized conversational quantity implicature to the effect that the stronger proposition does not, in fact, hold (cf. Horn 1989; Levinson 2000): "Has Anne ever eaten squid? No, she has never eaten that."