insinuate

English

WOTD – 30 November 2007

Etymology

From Latin īnsinuō (“to push in, creep in, steal in”), from in (“in”) + sinus (“a winding, bend, bay, fold, bosom”)

Pronunciation

Verb

insinuate (third-person singular simple present insinuates, present participle insinuating, simple past and past participle insinuated)

  1. To hint; to suggest tacitly while avoiding a direct statement.
    She insinuated that her friends had betrayed her.
  2. (rare) To creep, wind, or flow into; to enter gently, slowly, or imperceptibly, as into crevices.
    • Woodward
      The water easily insinuates itself into, and placidly distends, the vessels of vegetables.
  3. (figuratively, by extension) To ingratiate; to obtain access to or introduce something by subtle, cunning or artful means.
    • 1995, Terry Pratchett, Maskerade, p. 242
      Nanny didn't so much enter places as insinuate herself; she had unconsciously taken a natural talent for liking people and developed it into an occult science.
    • John Locke
      All the art of rhetoric, besides order and clearness, are for nothing else but to insinuate wrong ideas, move the passions, and thereby mislead the judgment.
    • Dryden
      Horace laughs to shame all follies and insinuates virtue, rather by familiar examples than by the severity of precepts.
    • Clarendon
      He insinuated himself into the very good grace of the Duke of Buckingham.

Synonyms

  • (make a way for or introduce something by subtle, crafty or artful means): imply

Translations

Further reading

  • insinuate in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
  • insinuate in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911

Anagrams

Italian

Verb

insinuate

  1. second-person plural present indicative of insinuare
  2. second-person plural imperative of insinuare
  3. feminine plural of insinuato

Latin

Verb

īnsinuāte

  1. first-person plural present active imperative of īnsinuō
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