Crossword clues for insinuate
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Insinuate \In*sin"u*ate\, v. i.
To creep, wind, or flow in; to enter gently, slowly, or imperceptibly, as into crevices.
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To ingratiate one's self; to obtain access or favor by flattery or cunning.
He would insinuate with thee but to make thee sigh.
--Shak.To insinuate, flatter, bow, and bend my limbs.
--Shak.
Insinuate \In*sin"u*ate\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Insinuated; p. pr. & vb. n. Insinuating.] [L. insinuatus, p. p. of insinuareto insinuate; pref. in- in + sinus the bosom. See Sinuous.]
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To introduce gently or slowly, as by a winding or narrow passage, or a gentle, persistent movement.
The water easily insinuates itself into, and placidly distends, the vessels of vegetables.
--Woodward. -
To introduce artfully; to infuse gently; to instill.
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.
--Locke.Horace laughs to shame all follies and insinuates virtue, rather by familiar examples than by the severity of precepts.
--Dryden. To hint; to suggest by remote allusion; -- often used derogatorily; as, did you mean to insinuate anything?
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To push or work (one's self), as into favor; to introduce by slow, gentle, or artful means; to ingratiate; -- used reflexively.
He insinuated himself into the very good grace of the Duke of Buckingham.
--Clarendon.Syn: To instill; hint; suggest; intimate.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1520s, from Latin insinuatus, past participle of insinuare "to throw in, push in, make a way; creep in, intrude, bring in by windings and curvings, wind one's way into," from in- "in" (see in- (2)) + sinuare "to wind, bend, curve," from sinus "a curve, winding" (see sinus). Sense of "to introduce tortuously or indirectly" is from 1640s. Related: Insinuated; insinuating; insinuatingly.
Wiktionary
vb. 1 (context rare English) To creep, wind, or flow into; to enter gently, slowly, or imperceptibly, as into crevices. 2 (context figurative by extension English) To ingratiate; to obtain access to or introduce something by subtle, cunning or artful means. 3 To hint; to suggest tacitly while avoiding a direct statement.
WordNet
Usage examples of "insinuate".
It insinuates itself into all Alaskan activities, witnessing and commenting on the daily lives of animals and man.
Rachmed Baya Bam insinuated itself over the clearing as he kneaded the useless legs of Wesley Pruiss.
Some slight disturbances, though they were suppressed almost as soon as excited, in Syria and the frontiers of Armenia, afforded the enemies of the church a very plausible occasion to insinuate, that those troubles had been secretly fomented by the intrigues of the bishops, who had already forgotten their ostentatious professions of passive and unlimited obedience.
He was rejoiced at this occasion of displaying his own qualifications, took his place at one of the three long tables, betwixt a Westphalian count and a Bolognian marquis, insinuated himself into the conversation with his usual address, and in less than half an hour, found means to accost a native of each different country in his own mother-tongue.
It was sometimes faintly insinuated, and sometimes boldly asserted, that the same bloody sacrifices, and the same incestuous festivals, which were so falsely ascribed to the orthodox believers, were in reality celebrated by the Marcionites, by the Carpocratians, and by several other sects of the Gnostics, who, notwithstanding they might deviate into the paths of heresy, were still actuated by the sentiments of men, and still governed by the precepts of Christianity.
Americans seemed to have given no serious thought to the possibility that a spy might have been insinuated into the Japanese embassy to ease their cryptanalytic burden.
He had alluded, in his letter to Emily, to the obligation he was under to the services of Denbigh, in erasing his unfortunate partiality for her: but what those services were, we are unable to say, unless they were the usual arguments of the plainest good sense, enforced in the singularly insinuating and kind manner which distinguished that gentleman.
But then a wave of torpor insinuated itself as a last vestige of the chemical washed across his forebrain, sinuous molecules urging sleep, a resumption of the comforting nothin ness that took away the fear of being cocooned like this.
Yet the past invariably insinuates itself into our present life through the Parent and the Child, and unless we understand why this happens, and admit that it does, we do not have an emancipated Adult by which we can become the responsible persons Glasser admonishes us to be.
Soon, nevertheless, there insinuates itself the realization that there is in this work neither the all-creating spirit the composer so magniloquently invokes, nor the heaven he strives so ardently to attain.
Yet, this wild hint seemed inferentially negatived, by what a grey Manxman insinuated, an old sepulchral man, who, having never before sailed out of Nantucket, had never ere this laid eye upon wild Ahab.
Bolingbroke insinuated himself into the confidence of lady Masham, to whom Oxford had given some cause of disgust.
Madam Clement was visited by Fathom, who, after having complained, in the most insinuating manner that she had encouraged his wife to abandon her duty, told her a plausible story of his first acquaintance with Monimia, and his marriage at the Fleet, which, he said, he was ready to prove by the evidence of the clergyman who joined them, and that of Mrs.
In the evening after supper the insinuating Perigordian redoubled his politeness and attentions.
Just as Nanoannie was closing her eyes and spacing out, the insinuating Thujone fragrance was overpowered by the salt-piss smell of cheap ramen.