innuendo
/ˌɪnjuˈɛndəʊ/
innuendo noun: a derogatory hint or reference to, or (often sexual) insinuation about, a person or thing.
Noun
innuendo (countable and uncountable, plural innuendoes or innuendos or innuendis)
- A derogatory hint or reference to, or (often sexual) insinuation about, a person or thing.
- She made a devious innuendo about her opponent, who was embarrassed.
- At dinner, a dish of stewed eels made Mr. Higgs a little pensive, and he remarked, "that the fair sex slipped through your fingers just like eels." This innuendo was, however, all that disturbed the enjoyment of the day, whose hilarity, as the newspapers say of a public dinner, was prolonged to a...1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XV, in Romance and Reality. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 273
- A remark that is suggestive of something sexual without stating it explicitly.
- We were both quite good friends and apart from the playful innuendos about having an affair together we never really did anything.1995, Bunmi Sofola, Yours Sincerely: Selected Writings of Bunmi Sofola
- Later in this phone call, Frank assk Libby on a date, and she accepts the invitation. [...] A similar road toward flirtatious innuendo seems to be at work in the following example. / FIELD NOTE / Fred: Who's that beautiful girl in that great sports car?! / Shirley: ((lightheartedly)) Shut up and...1998, Anna Banks, Stephen P. Banks, Fiction and Social Research: By Ice Or Fire, Rowman & Littlefield, →ISBN, page 43
- A rhetorical device with an omitted but obvious conclusion, made to increase the force of an argument.
- Part of a pleading in cases of libel and slander, pointing out what and who was meant by the libellous matter or description.
Verb
innuendo (third-person singular simple present innuendos, present participle innuendoing, simple past and past participle innuendoed)
- To interpret (something libellous or slanderous) in terms of what was implied.
- A statement that a person's presence at a certain club may be "irksome," may be innuendoed that the person is of such bad character as not to be a fit associate with honourable men.1894, Frank Towers Cooper, A Handbook of the Law of Defamation and Verbal Injury, page 119
innuendo meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
innuendo in Hindi
- innuendo
- व्यंग्य vyaṅgya
innuendo in Tamil
- மறைமுக அவதூறு, குத்தல் பேச்சு
innuendo in Urdu
- چوت, اشارہ, کنایہ
innuendo in Bengali
- পরোক্ষ, বাঁকা ইঙ্গিত
More languagesFewer languages
- innuendo in Telugu
- అన్యాపదేశము anyāpadēśamu
- innuendo in Malayalam
- വക്രോക്തി, വ്യംഗ്യോക്തി, കുത്തുവാക്ക്, അപകീർത്തികരമായ ദുസ്സൂചനകൾ
- innuendo in Kannada
- ವ್ಯಂಗ್ಯೋಕ್ತಿ, ಕೊಂಕುಮಾತು, ವಕ್ರೋಕ್ತಿ, ಕೊಂಕುನುಡಿ
- innuendo in Punjabi
- ਵਿਅੰਗ viaṅga
- innuendo in Arabic
- تَلْمِيح talmīḥ
Examples of innuendo in a sentence
- From the start then, the prosecutor David Tudor-Price relied on innuendo to carry his case. […] his whole presentation was based on shoring-up the stereotypes.1981 February 14, Roger Moody, “Retrial for PIE Defendants”, in Gay Community News, volume 8, number 29, page 4:
- “The attacks and allegations from Candace [Owens] are either lies or they are innuendos thrown around with a total reckless disregard for the truth,” Mr. [Blake] Neff said.2025 December 20, Richard Fausset, Ken Bensinger, quoting Blake Neff, “Turning Point’s Annual Gathering Turns Into a Gripefest”, in The New...
- This is kalaburi, a joking banter that includes stories, jokes, wordplays (puns and double entendres, which are often sexual), and playful innuendo.2016 September 29, Jane K. Cowan, Dance and the Body Politic in Northern Greece, Princeton University Press, →ISBN, page 157:
Forms of innuendo
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | innuendoes |
| plural | innuendos |
| plural | innuendis |
| alternative form | inuendo |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | innuendos |
| present participle | innuendoing |
| past participle | innuendoed |
| past | innuendoed |
Origin of innuendo
From the Latin innuendō (“by nodding”), ablative singular form of innuendum (“a nodding”), gerund of innuō (“to give a nod”).
Words formed from innuendo
Words that rhyme with innuendo
Questions about innuendo
- What does innuendo mean?
- Innuendo means a derogatory hint or reference to, or (often sexual) insinuation about, a person or thing.
- What is innuendo in Hindi?
- Innuendo in Hindi is व्यंग्य (vyaṅgya). See Innuendo meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use innuendo in a sentence?
- From the start then, the prosecutor David Tudor-Price relied on innuendo to carry his case. […] his whole presentation was based on shoring-up the stereotypes.
- What part of speech is innuendo?
- Innuendo can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce innuendo?
- Innuendo is pronounced /ˌɪnjuˈɛndəʊ/.
- What is the plural of innuendo?
- The plural of innuendo is innuendoes.
Words near innuendo in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: innuendo (page history and authors); व्यंग्य (Hindi) (page history and authors); innuendo (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); innuendo (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); innuendo (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); innuendo (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); innuendo (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ਵਿਅੰਗ (Punjabi) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-I learned some phrases-innuendo.wav, En-us-innuendo.ogg.
Cite this entry: “innuendo.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/innuendo. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.