Insinuate

//ɪnˈsɪnjueɪt// adj, verb

adj, verb ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

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

    "She insinuated that her friends had betrayed her."

  2. 2
    give to understand wordnet
  3. 3
    To creep, wind, or flow into; to enter gently, slowly, or imperceptibly, as into crevices. rare

    "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"

  4. 4
    introduce or insert (oneself) in a subtle manner wordnet
  5. 5
    To ingratiate; to obtain access to or introduce something by subtle, cunning or artful means. broadly, figuratively

    "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."

Adjective
  1. 1
    Insinuated. obsolete

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

Synonyms

All synonyms
intimatehintimplyinfuseintimateintroduce

Antonyms

All antonyms
exply

Example

More examples

"Are you trying to insinuate that a woman could never be as intelligent as a man?!"

Etymology

First attested in 1529; Borrowed from Latin īnsinuātus, perfect passive participle of īnsinuō (“to push in, creep in, steal in”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix)), from in- (“in”) + sinus (“a winding, bend, bay, fold, bosom”) -ō (verb-forming suffix). Regular participial usage of the adjective up until Early Modern English.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.