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verb

insinuate

to suggest something unpleasant in an indirect, sly way

In a sentence

Six example sentences with insinuate, each labelled with its topic.

  • The senator never accused his opponent outright, but he managed to insinuate that her campaign donors expected favors in return.

    Politics

  • The villain's every compliment is designed to insinuate that the heroine's late husband was not the man she remembers.

    Movies

  • The narrator never says the cousin is a thief; each chapter merely lets a servant insinuate that silver keeps going missing.

    Literature

  • The rival's advertisement never names our bakery, but every line insinuates that its bread is baked somewhere far away.

    Business

  • The commentator managed to insinuate that the star had stopped trying in the fourth quarter without ever saying so.

    Basketball

  • The lawyer's question was framed to insinuate that the witness had a reason to shade the truth, and the judge struck it.

    Law

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Found in these word lists

Found in 5 published word listsRecognized

Each source is a published word list that contains insinuate. No exam board publishes an official GRE, GMAT or SAT list; GMAT words come from GRE lists and the Academic Word List.