insinuate

UK/ɪnˈsɪnjueɪt/

insinuate verb: to hint; to suggest tacitly (usually something bad) while avoiding a direct statement.

Verb

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

To hint; to suggest tacitly (usually something bad) while avoiding a direct statement.
- She insinuated that her friends had betrayed her.
- 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
Synonyms:

advert, allude, hint, imply, indicate, inkle, intimate, moot, refer, signify
(rare) To creep, wind, or flow into; to enter gently, slowly, or imperceptibly, as into crevices.
- Water will insinuate itself into Flints through certain imperceptible Cracks1728-1729, John Woodward, An Attempt towards a Natural History of the Fossils of England
- Some speakers allow the sound of r to insinuate itself between the a and s of wash1999, Charles Harrington Estler, The Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations, page 403
(broadly, figuratively) To ingratiate; to obtain access to or introduce something by subtle, cunning or artful means.
- 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...

Adjective

insinuate (comparative more insinuate, superlative most insinuate)

(obsolete) Insinuated.
- 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

insinuate meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

insinuate in Tamil

மறைமுகமாக் குறிப்பிடு, மெல்ல நுழை, தந்திரமாகப் புகுத்து

insinuate in Bengali

আভাসে ইঙ্গিত করা, কৌশলে প্রবেশ করানো, পরোক্ষভাবে বলা

insinuate in Malayalam

മെല്ലെ ചെലുത്തുക, പാട്ടിലാക്കുക, സൂചിപ്പിക്കുക, തെറ്റു സൂചിപ്പിക്കുക

More languagesFewer languages

insinuate in Kannada: ಪರೋಕ್ಷವಾಗಿ ತಿಳಿಸು, ವ್ಯಂಗ್ಯವಾಗಿ ಸೂಚಿಸು, ಉಪಾಯವಾಗಿ ನುಸುಳಿಸು, ಒಳ ಜಾರಿಬಿಡು
insinuate in Tagalog: iparinig, magparinig, paringgan
insinuate in Arabic: لَمَّحَ lammaḥa, أَلْمَحَ ʔalmaḥa, أَشَارَ ʔašāra, تسحّب

Examples of insinuate in a sentence

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., […]...
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...
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...
[…] 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...

All 13 example sentences with insinuate

Synonyms of insinuate

1 more synonymsFewer synonyms

suggest

All synonyms of insinuate

Forms of insinuate

Verb
third-person singular present	insinuates
present participle	insinuating
past participle	insinuated
past	insinuated
Adjective
comparative	more insinuate
superlative	most insinuate

Past tense of insinuate: insinuated

Origin of insinuate

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.

Words formed from insinuate

Questions about insinuate

What does insinuate mean?: Insinuate means to hint; to suggest tacitly (usually something bad) while avoiding a direct statement.
What is insinuate in Tamil?: Insinuate in Tamil is மறைமுகமாக் குறிப்பிடு, மெல்ல நுழை, தந்திரமாகப் புகுத்து. See Insinuate meaning in Tamil.
How do you use insinuate in a sentence?: And, moreover, you need not for a moment to insinuate that the virtues have taken refuge in cottages and wholly abandoned slated houses.
What part of speech is insinuate?: Insinuate can be a verb or an adjective.
How do you pronounce insinuate?: Insinuate is pronounced /ɪnˈsɪnjueɪt/ (UK).
What is the past tense of insinuate?: The past tense of insinuate is insinuated.

Words near insinuate in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: insinuate (page history and authors); insinuate (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); insinuate (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Insinuate (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); insinuate (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); insinuate (Kannada Wiktionary) (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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-insinuate.ogg, en-au-insinuate.ogg.

Cite this entry: “insinuate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/insinuate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.