insinuate

present singular third person insinuates · participle present insinuating · participle past insinuated · past insinuated

1. To hint; to suggest tacitly (usually something bad) while avoiding a direct statement.

   She insinuated that her friends had betrayed her.

   3 more examples

   And wilt thou inſinuate what I am? and praiſe me? And ſay I am a Noble Fellow?

   1610 (first performance), Ben[jamin] Jonson, The Alchemist, London: […] Thomas Snodham, for Walter Burre, and are to be sold by Iohn Stepneth, […], published 1612, →OCLC, Act II, scene iii

   And, moreover, you need not for a moment to insinuate that the virtues have taken refuge in cottages and wholly abandoned slated houses.

   1849, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], “Hollow’s Cottage”, in Shirley. A Tale. […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], →OCLC, page 82

   ‘You are quite wrong, my love, in your guess at my meaning. What I insinuated was, that my Georgiana’s little heart was growing conscious of a vacancy.’

   1864 May – 1865 November, Charles Dickens, chapter 4, in Our Mutual Friend. […], volume II, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1865, →OCLC

   Synonyms: advert, allude, hint, imply, indicate, inkle, intimate, moot

2. rareTo creep, wind, or flow into; to enter gently, slowly, or imperceptibly, as into crevices.

   1728-1729, John Woodward, An Attempt towards a Natural History of the Fossils of England Water will insinuate itself into Flints through certain imperceptible Cracks

   1 more example

   Some speakers allow the sound of r to insinuate itself between the a and s of wash

   1999, Charles Harrington Estler, The Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations, page 403

3. broadlyfigurativelyTo ingratiate; to obtain access to or introduce something by subtle, cunning or artful means.

   He[…] insinuated himself into the very good grace of the Duke of Buckingham.

   1702–1704, Edward [Hyde, 1st] Earl of Clarendon, (please specify |book=I to XVI), in The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, Begun in the Year 1641. […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed at the [Sheldonian] Theater

   4 more examples

   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.

   1689 (indicated as 1690), [John Locke], chapter 3, in An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding. […], London: […] Eliz[abeth] Holt, for Thomas Basset, […], →OCLC

   Horace laughs to shame all follies and insinuates virtue, rather by familiar examples than by the severity of precepts.

   1693, John Dryden, “[The Dedication]”, in The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis. Translated into English Verse. […] Together with the Satires of Aulus Persius Flaccus. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson […], →OCLC

   […] he insinuated himself into the confidence of one already so forlorn—[…]

   1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], chapter XIII, in Rob Roy. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC, page 306

   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.

   1995, Terry Pratchett, Maskerade, page 242

comparative more insinuate · superlative most insinuate

1. obsoleteInsinuated.

   The great mistery of Christes passyon […] lyttle and lyttle at sundry seasons to bee sygnifyed and insinuate conueniently to man.

   1534, Thomas More, Treatise upon the Passion, I. The First Lecture