insinuendo

English

Etymology

Blend of insinuation +‎ innuendo

Noun

insinuendo (plural insinuendos or insinuendoes)

  1. insinuation containing innuendo
    • 1888, Brander Matthews, Pen and Ink; Papers on Subjects of More Or Less Importance,, page 57:
      Truly a man may wish, “O that mine enemy would let me write his Preface! Could I not damn with faint praise and stab with sharp insinuendo?” – to use the labor-saving and much-needed word thoughtlessly invented by the sable legislator of South Carolina.
    • 1918, Eugene Wood, “Missed It - The Big Idea”, in Boys' Life, Boy Scouts of America, Inc., page 30:
      It’s sort of an insinuendo, as Matt King says, that your mind could stand a good deal of improving and not hurt it any.
    • 1964, Milton Rokeach, The three Christs of Ypsilanti: a psychological study, Knopf, page 131:
      "I don't have it," says Leon. "It was done away with because of the negative insinuendo."
    • 2017 December 4, Roslyn Petelin, “The horror and pleasure of misused words: from mispronunciation to malapropisms”, in The Conversation‎[1], archived from the original on 12 November 2024:
      The most quoted malamanteau is George W. Bush’s “I misunderestimated”. Others that have evoked smirks have been “miscommunicado” (from “miscommunicate” and “incommunicado”), “insinuendo” (from “innuendo” and “insinuation”), and “squirmish” (“squirm” and “skirmish”).
    • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:insinuendo.
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