intimation

intimation \in-tuh-MAY-shuhn\, noun:

an indirect or slight suggestion; hint

She had always had an intimation of her destiny: all her senses would go on the alert, as if bracing her for a blow-a terrible, crushing, powerful blow-of luck, whether good or bad.
-- Nina Berberova, Cape of Storms (translated by Marian Schwartz)

As it drew nearer he recognized it as a police car and some intimation of drama touched him, the prelude to some story, and he seated himself to watch.
-- William Gay, The Long Home

Jake Hersh, like Mordecai Richler himself a Canadian, is a television and film director living in London and struggling against that awful time in life when possibilities suddenly close and a dire intimation of finality sets in.
-- Jonathan Yardley, review of St. Urbain's Horseman, by Mordecai Richler, New York Times, June 26, 1967

A frightened, inarticulate maid weeping in the hall was their first intimation that something was wrong.
-- Annabel Davis-Goff, The Dower House

by 1442, from Late Latin intimationem "action of intimating," from intimare "to impress (upon), make known"