Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Innuendo

In′nu·en′do, n.; pl. Innuedoes. [L., by intimation, by hinting, gerund of innuere, innutum, to give a nod, to intimate; pref. in- in, to + -nuere (in comp.) to nod. See Nutation.] 1. An oblique hint; a remote allusion or reference, usually derogatory to a person or thing not named; an insinuation.

Mercury . . . owns it a marriage by an innuendo. Dryden.

Pursue your trade of scandal picking; Your innuendoes, when you tell us, That Stella loves to talk with fellows. Swift.

2. (Law) An averment employed in pleading, to point the application of matter otherwise unintelligible; an interpretative parenthesis thrown into quoted matter to explain an obscure word or words; — as, the plaintiff avers that the defendant said that he (innuendo the plaintiff) was a thief. Wharton.

☞ The term is so applied from having been the introductory word of this averment or parenthetic explanation when pleadings were in Latin. The word "meaning" is used as its equivalent in modern forms.

Syn. — Insinuation; suggestion; hint; intimation; reference; allusion; implication; representation; — Innuendo, Insinuation. An innuendo is an equivocal allusion so framed as to point distinctly at something which is injurious to the character or reputation of the person referred to. An insinuation turns on no such double use of language, but consists in artfully winding into the mind imputations of an injurious nature without making any direct charge.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.