• (RP, America) IPA: /ɪnˈsɪnjueɪt/

insinuate (insinuates, present participle insinuating; past and past participle insinuated)

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

   She insinuated that her friends had betrayed her.

2. (rare) To creep, wind, or flow into; to enter gently, slowly, or imperceptibly, as into crevices.

   • The water easily insinuates itself into, and placidly distends, the vessels of vegetables.

3. (figurative, by extension) To ingratiate; to obtain access to or introduce something by subtle, cunning or artful means.
   • 1995, Terry Pratchett, Maskerade, p. 242

     Nanny didn't so much enter places as insinuate herself; she had unconsciously taken a natural talent for liking people and developed it into an occult science.

   • 1689 (indicated as 1690)​, [John Locke], chapter 3, in An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding. […], London: […] Thomas Basset, […], OCLC 153628242 ↗:

     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.

   • Horace laughs to shame all follies and insinuates virtue, rather by familiar examples than by the severity of precepts.

   • He insinuated himself into the very good grace of the Duke of Buckingham.

   • 1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818)​, [Walter Scott], Rob Roy. [...] In Three Volumes, volume (please specify ), Edinburgh: Printed by James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, OCLC 82790126 ↗:

     he insinuated himself into the confidence of one already so forlorn

• See also Thesaurus:allude

• insinuation
• insinuator

• French: insinuer
• German: andeuten
• Italian: insinuare
• Spanish: insinuar

• Italian: insinuare

• Italian: insinuarsi

• French: insinuer
• German: einschmeicheln
• Russian: заи́скивать пе́ред

• French: insinuer
• Portuguese: insinuar
• Russian: намека́ть
• Spanish: insinuar