I looked up the meanings of the insinuate and imply.
Insinuate, as shown on the site vocabulary.com, means suggest in an indirect or covert way, and imply means to express or state indirectly.
I was just wondering, are they interchangeable?
The following are some sentences where insinuate is used:
-
But they share common stylistic traits, most notably a tendency to insinuate more than they state outright.
-
I politely commented that he was right, a lot of people are offended by that term, insinuating that I was among them.
-
"This gives Schmidt the opportunity to insinuate his desires" into the state’s technology strategy for schools, he said.
In these sentences, can we use imply, instead of insinuate?
Best Answer
The main difference in meaning between imply and insinuate is this taken from Merriam-Webster on the term insinuate:
"The word insinuate, on the other hand, usually includes a sense that the idea being conveyed is unpleasant, or that it is being passed along in a sly or underhanded way ("She insinuated that I cheated")".
But another difference is this: A person who hears someone says something can have the impression the speaker is insinuating or implying this or that. That's fine. But the term imply or implication may also be used in formal logic and philosophy whereas the term insinuate itself is not a formal term.
A logical implication or material implication is formal term in logic. It is written like this: A implies B, where the word implies is an arrow that cannot be transcribed here. But you can view it here: logical implication and this is the symbol for implication or implies: ⇒
As for "insinuating desires" into technology, that is a metaphorical use of the term and suggests slying introducing them into technology, as opposed to just doing it outright or in a clearly visible manner.