False Friend alert…!
From the context in which I was reading it yesterday, I could tell that ‘intimer’ does not mean ‘to intimate’. So back to the Roberts-Collins dictionary to see what it does mean: ‘to order, to summon, to notify’. An example: ‘intimer à quelqu’un de faire quelque chose’ : ‘to order somebody to do something’.
‘To intimate’ is ‘laisser entendre’ or ‘donner à entendre’.