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Intimation vs Insinuate - What's the difference?

intimation | insinuate |

As a noun intimation

is the act of intimating; also, the thing intimated.

As a verb insinuate is

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

intimation

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • The act of intimating; also, the thing intimated.
  • Announcement; declaration.
  • * (Holland)
  • They made an edict with an intimation that whosoever killed a stork, should be banished.
  • A hint; an obscure or indirect suggestion or notice; a remote or ambiguous reference; as, he had given only intimations of his design.
  • *
  • Without mentioning the king of England, or giving the least intimation that he was sent by him.
  • * 1862 , (Henry David Thoreau), :
  • At length, perchance, the immaterial heaven will appear as much higher to the American mind, and the intimations that star it as much brighter.

    insinuate

    English

    Verb

  • (rare) To creep, wind, or flow into; to enter gently, slowly, or imperceptibly, as into crevices.
  • * Woodward
  • The water easily insinuates itself into, and placidly distends, the vessels of vegetables.
  • (figurative, by extension) To ingratiate; to obtain access to or introduce something by subtle, cunning or artful means.
  • * 1995 , , 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.
  • * John Locke
  • 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.
  • * Dryden
  • Horace laughs to shame all follies and insinuates virtue, rather by familiar examples than by the severity of precepts.
  • * Clarendon
  • He insinuated himself into the very good grace of the Duke of Buckingham.
  • To hint; to suggest tacitly while avoiding a direct statement.
  • She insinuated that her friends had betrayed her.

    Synonyms

    * (Make a way for or introduce something by subtle, crafty or artful means. ): imply

    Anagrams

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