"Innuendo" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... want of religion, and that on such topics nothing was more easy than to offend him—although, I say, he knew the royal weakness, and therefore carefully put the preceding question in the softest and most simple tone of voice, Louis felt the innuendo which it contained, and regarded the speaker with ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... regret the refusal of the authorities to accede to his wish, when rumour and vague innuendo concerning himself and Mrs. Markham came to his ears. He wondered that so much had been made of a mere passing incident, but he forgot that his fortunes were intimately connected with those of many others. He passed Harley once in the streets and the flamboyant ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... second-cousin, discreetly advanced in her forties, was entitled to keep house for the colonel in his bereavement, as a jointly beneficial arrangement, without provoking scandal's tongue to more than a jocose innuendo or two when people met for "auction"—that new-fangled perplexing variant of bridge, just introduced, wherein you bid on the suits.... And, besides, Cousin Lucy Fentnor (as befitted any one born an Allardyce) was to all accounts a notable housekeeper, famed ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... silence &c (taciturnity) 585; concealment &c. 528; more than meets the eye, more than meets the ear; Delphic oracle; le dessous des cartes[Fr], undercurrent. implication, logical implication; logical consequence; entailment. allusion, insinuation; innuendo &c. 527; adumbration; "something rotten in the state of Denmark" [Hamlet]. snake in the grass &c. (pitfall) 667; secret &c. 533. darkness, invisibility, imperceptibility. V. be latent &c. adj.; lurk, smolder, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Russell's determined effort to betray and ruin him in October, 1862, he could have scarcely used stronger expressions than he did in 1863. Russell must have been greatly annoyed by Sir Robert Collier's hint of collusion with the rebel agents in the Alabama Case, but he hardened himself to hear the same innuendo repeated in nearly every note from the Legation. As time went on, Russell was compelled, though slowly, to treat the American Minister as serious. He admitted nothing so unwillingly, for the nullity or fatuity of the Washington Government was his idee fixe; but ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... hip at last. More than arrogance had kept him off from the bodies of the town; a consciousness also that he was not their match in malicious innuendo. The direct attack he could meet superbly, downing his opponent with a coarse birr of the tongue; to the veiled gibe he was a quivering hulk, to be prodded at your ease. And now the malignants were around ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... said George, appearing to take no notice of Hanky's innuendo, "that you will swear to the facts as you ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... officers; "but," he added, looking fixedly at Mr. Craggs as he spoke, "there were other men in high station, whom, in time, he would not be afraid to name, who were no less guilty than the directors." Mr. Craggs arose in great wrath, and said, that if the innuendo were directed against him, he was ready to give satisfaction to any man who questioned him, either in the House or out of it. Loud cries of order immediately arose on every side. In the midst of the uproar Lord Molesworth got up, and expressed his wonder at the ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... And now we're well secured by law, Till the next brother find a flaw. 20 Read o'er a will. Was't ever known, But you could make the will your own; For when you read,'tis with intent To find out meanings never meant. Since things are thus, se defendendo, I bar fallacious innuendo. Sagacious Porta's[6] skill could trace Some beast or bird in every face. The head, the eye, the nose's shape, Proved this an owl, and that an ape. 30 When, in the sketches thus designed, Resemblance brings some friend ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... their most carefully laid plans. They would very much have preferred to have made a tool of the reigning Duke, but Selpdorf, who had been plying him for more than a month with a ceaseless and exhaustive course of innuendo, discouragement, and veiled temptation, was at length convinced, by the Duke's reply on the day of the review, that nothing further was to be ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... the capital, where the conversation was always moral at least, if not entertaining! Dang. Now, egad, I think the worst alteration is in the nicety of the audience!—No double-entendre, no smart innuendo admitted; even Vanbrugh and Congreve obliged to undergo a bungling reformation! Sneer. Yes, and our prudery in this respect is just on a par with the artificial bashfulness of a courtesan, who increases the blush upon her cheek ...
— Scarborough and the Critic • Sheridan
... published it merely as an accident—which it really was. But they might have made it, by innuendo, a horror for me. However, they put it so simply and so unsuspiciously that Jose Querida might have been any nice man calling on any ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... these charges and the rest of Mr Bennett's tale of monstrosity. The Sirdar himself has confirmed by a personal cablegram my refutation of them. Here is another of Mr Bennett's suggestions of evil-doing, by innuendo and assertion:—"It was stated that orders had been given to kill the wounded." And, "If the Sirdar really believes that the destruction of the wounded was a military necessity," etc. Can colossal crassness go further? There is not and never was a scintilla of truth for the charge of ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... officially a secret, it was one of which the innumerable intimate friends of the family were already possessed; and the trainful of returning guests buzzed with allusions and anticipations. Lily was acutely aware of her own part in this drama of innuendo: she knew the exact quality of the amusement the situation evoked. The crude forms in which her friends took their pleasure included a loud enjoyment of such complications: the zest of surprising destiny in the act of playing ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... him, complacent, curious, blightingly unconscious of his emotions, and the young man felt a stirring of hot impatience. Insinuation and innuendo were of no use where Pixie O'Shaughnessy was concerned; an ordinary girl might scent a proposal afar off and amuse herself by an affectation of innocence, but nothing short of a plain declaration of love would ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... trust our divination, a preference for French models, Balzac, De Musset, Feuillet, Taine, Gautier, Merimee, Sainte-Beuve, especially the three latter. He emulates successfully their suavity, their urbanity, their clever knack of conveying a fuller meaning by innuendo than by direct bluntness of statement. If not the best school for substance, it is an admirable one for method, and for so much of style as is attainable by example. It is the same school in which the writers ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... bond-servant, leaving the sting of innuendo behind him, had turned all eyes toward the traveller, and Bagby but voiced the curiosity of the roomful when he inquired, "What did Fownes ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... sufficiently familiar with Lynde to criticize him in her own mind, and even outwardly by innuendo, for being a loafer and idler who had never created in any way the money he was so freely spending. She had little power to psychologize concerning social conditions, but the stalwart constructive persistence of Cowperwood along commercial ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... yellow to black at this innuendo, which was, for many reasons, particularly disagreeable. Seeing that he was bagging to leeward, like a west-country barge laden with a haystack, in this sailing-match of wits, he broke up the conference by observing, "You had better, doctor, in consideration ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... the fact that Reginald and Willie had been industriously circulating the episode of the morning, with such additions as they thought would add point and piquancy, among the rest of the boys, and there was no end of innuendo and witticism indulged in, that caused the young gentlemen to retire in groups and laugh; and we could hear such remarks as, "Dick, there was a whale hooked on this coast this afternoon, did you know it?" Or, "I think Jack Deadeye is the ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... being read and retold by each man or woman after his or her own fashion. The papers mentioned it, as seen through the optic lens of the society journalist, with what strange refraction. Most of them descried in poor Herminia's tragedy nothing but material for a smile, a sneer, or an innuendo. The Dean himself wrote to her, a piteous, paternal note, which bowed her down more than ever in her abyss of sorrow. He wrote as a dean must,—gray hairs brought down with sorrow to the grave; infinite mercy of Heaven; still room for repentance; ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... without, so far as can be judged, violating, or even to any large degree suppressing facts, does equal credit to the clear-sightedness of his policy and to his extraordinary literary power. From first to last there is not a word either of self-laudation or of innuendo; yet at the end we find that, by the use of the simplest and most lucid narration, in which hardly a fact or a detail can be controverted, Caesar has cleared his motives and justified his conduct with a success the more complete because his tone is so temperate and seemingly so impartial. An officer ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... had to rely upon his innuendo—"meaning thereby Joe Smith was a rogue"—and was very eloquent as to slander unspoken but expressed by signs and tone. After an exhausting speech he sat down and buried his head in his ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... ingenuousness and illusion on their part: they will always add what they have of personal, if they be truly historians, though it be without knowing it, or they will believe that they have escaped doing so, only because they have referred to it by innuendo, which is the most insinuating ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... meet her womanly innuendo with a coarse and abrupt denial," said he. "There are some shreds of common decency left in ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... instance, yes; but I have been there alone too," for Erle's truthful nature scorned subterfuge. The crisis he had dreaded had come on him at last; but Percy should not see that he was afraid. He might be weak and vacillating, but he was a gentleman, and a lie was abhorrent to him. Percy's innuendo might work deadly mischief, but all the same he would not shelter himself ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... out at last in one of the most remarkable letters we possess of his. It was obviously intended to hurt and insult Michelangelo as much as lay within his power of innuendo and direct abuse. The invective offers so many points of interest with regard to both men, that I shall not hesitate to ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... and verse. Nothing, however, but The Temple has held popular estimation, and that has held it firmly, being as much helped by the Tractarian as by the Romantic movement. It may be confessed without shame and without innuendo that Herbert has been on the whole a greater favourite with readers than with critics, and the reason is obvious. He is not prodigal of the finest strokes of poetry. To take only his own contemporaries, and undoubtedly pupils, ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... into Volney's eyes. He understood it for no chance remark, but as an innuendo tossed forth as a challenge. Of all men Sir Robert Volney rode on the crest of fortune's wave, and there were not lacking those who whispered that his invariable luck was due to something more than chance and honest skill. For me, ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... he made the lowest possible bow to Mr. Washington and his mother, was by no means in good humour with either of them, and in all his further conversation that day with Colonel Washington showed a bitter sarcasm and a depth of innuendo which the Colonel was at a loss to understand. A short time after George's entrance into the Colonel's presence Harry answered back a remark of George's to the effect that he hated sporting by saying, "I ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... an author to have a lot of people running about his book, without any invitation from him at all. However, since Woggs is there, we must make the best of her. I fancy that she was a year or two younger than Wiggs and of rather inferior education. Witness her low innuendo about the Lady Belvane, and the fact that she ...
— Once on a Time • A. A. Milne
... Everyone saw the innuendo at once—everyone except the clergyman, and when he grasped the point, that Ol' Chum So-and-So was on the Danger List and a shortage of timber was supposed to imply that he might be done out of a coffin, he was visibly shocked. Perhaps he did not understand cockney humour.... ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... And partly because of her previous entire ignorance, partly because of her extreme receptiveness, she soon outstripped her comrades, and before long, was one of the most skilful improvisers of the group: a dexterous theorist: a wicked little adept at innuendo. ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... him. The reputation of Sir Alfred Milner as a statesman and as a politician was constantly challenged by the very people who ought to have defended it. Rhodes himself had been persuaded that the Governor harboured the most sinister designs against his person. The innuendo was one of the most heinous untruths ever invented ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... served no purpose whatsoever, but Mirabelle was firm in her opinion. More than that, she succeeded in making Henry feel that by his conduct he had hurried his uncle into an untimely grave; she didn't say this flatly, nor yet by innuendo, but she managed to convey it ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... first months of his stay in Rome. He answered with a shrug of his shoulders those who asked for his pictures with evident innuendo. He had come there not to paint but to study; that was what the State was paying him for. And he spent more than half a year drawing, always drawing in the famous art galleries, where, pencil in hand, he studied the famous works. The paint boxes remained unopened ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... and he smiled confidently, so confidently that Asad scarce needed to hear the words that so cunningly gave the lie to the innuendo. "Had I no trust in Allah the All-wise, ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... always have sweetness in connexion with everything else," he said with a slight emphasis. Faith's mind was too far away from the subject to catch his innuendo; unless other ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... tribe, Pete O'Halloran, comes in thirty miles to have his horse shod, and incidentally smashes the king-bolt of his buckboard at a bad place in the road. The Tribal Herald—a thin weekly, with a patent inside—connects the red nose and the breakdown with an innuendo which, to the outsider, is clumsy libel. But the Tribal Herald understands that two-and-seventy families of the tribe may use that road weekly. It concerns them to discover whether the accident was due to Pete being drunk or, as Pete protests, to the neglected state of the road. Fifteen men ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... St, James's, and with her set, Lady Clonbrony suffered a different kind of mortification from that which Lady Langdale and Mrs. Dareville made her endure. She was safe from the witty raillery, the sly innuendo, the insolent mimicry; but she was kept at a cold, impassable distance, by ceremony—'So far shalt thou go, and no farther' was expressed in every look, in every word, and in ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... pony have his way, and was off in a clatter. Lonely, fuming with resentment, Rudolph stared after him. What could he know, this airy, unfeeling meddler, so free with his advice and innuendo? Let him go, then, let him canter away. He had seen quickly, guessed with a diabolic shrewdness, yet would remain on the surface, always, of a mystery so violent and so profound. The young man stalked into his vacant ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... avoid observing that Davie laid something like a satirical emphasis on these lines. He therefore approached, and endeavoured, by sundry queries, to elicit from him what the innuendo might mean; but Davie had no mind to explain, and had wit enough to make his folly cloak his knavery. Edward could collect nothing from him, excepting that the Laird of Balmawhapple had gone home yesterday morning 'wi' his boots fu' o' bluid.' In the garden, however, he met the ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... they were obscene, scurrilous, and defamatory. In them the most abominable falsehoods were fearlessly charged upon men and women of all conditions and characters; not under fictitious names, nor by innuendo, but directly and with the real name of the party, while the execrable calumniator, protected by the licentious multitude, boldly defied both the power of the law and the avenging arm of the abused individual. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... that the book was one long and powerful innuendo against the Church, would not have been enough to secure its vast popularity. Attacks on the Church had become cheap by this time. The eighteenth century, as it is one of the chief aims of these studies to show, ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... nothing but what I have heard our good Dean of St. Paul's speak before princes and prelates in the pulpit," answered Brother Emmanuel, not pretending to misunderstand the innuendo conveyed. "Methinks it would profit many of our brothers in country places to hear what is being thought and taught in Oxford and London, in all the great centres of the country. The reverend father knows well what I hold and what ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... resources of the company were strained to the breaking point in order to raise money for this new campaign opening before it. Orde, returning to Lansing after a trip devoted to the carrying out of Newmark's directions as to finances, was dismayed at the tangle of strategy and cross-strategy, innuendo, vague and formless cobweb forces by which he was surrounded. He could make nothing of them. They brushed his face, he felt their influence, yet he could place his finger on no tangible and comprehensible solidity. Among these delicate and ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... the lines over twice, to convince himself that he was not mistaken, and that it was Prince Zilah who was designated with the skilfully veiled innuendo of an expert journalist. There was no chance for doubt; the indistinct nationality of the great lord spoken of thinly veiled the Magyar characteristics of Andras, and the paragraph which preceded the "Little Parisian Romance" was ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... than probable that, having heard by some means of Trevethick's hoard, he had come down to Gethin with the express intention of becoming possessed of it, which his accidental discovery of the secret of the letter padlock enabled him to do. In short, by artful innuendo at this or that part of the story, Richard was painted as a common thief, whose possession of such faculties as dexterity and finesse only made him a more dangerous enemy of society. There had been rumors, Mr. Smoothbore admitted, of certain romantic circumstances connected ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... Munch's venom was a thing too crude and unconcealed to face with indifference. Her emphatic "you know" was pregnant with innuendo and malice. Still, it did not occur to Stillman that he had any part in Claire Robson's misfortune. But he did know from Miss Munch's tone that the unfortunate situation, growing out of the automobile ride from Yolanda to Sausalito, had received due recognition at the hands of those ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... sisters. He made them promise that they would soon come with their father and mother to visit him in Venice. When they had gone, he spoke with less restraint, but continued to avoid any unsuitable innuendo or display of vanity. His audience might have imagined themselves listening to the story of a Parsifal rather than to that of a Casanova, the ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... waist defenseless. Her slender figure was temptation, the pretty ducal fury was only added zest. Up among the rocks Driscoll had found himself whispering, "She's game, that little girl!" But at the same time he had remembered Rodrigo's innuendo, the linking of her name with Maximilian's. She was so brave, and so headstrong, so lovably headstrong, and her beauty was so fresh and soft! Yet he could not but think of that taint in what nature had made so pure. Of a sudden there was a something wrong, something ugly and hideously wrong in ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... dear children, are the parties about to be united?" said he, addressing Roberts and Lady Emily, with a bow that had in it a strong professional innuendo, but of what nature ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... between the Jocularity of the Gentleman and that of the Vulgarian; and again, between that of the educated and uneducated man. This you may see from a comparison of the Old and New Comedy: in the former obscene talk made the fun; in the latter it is rather innuendo: and this is no slight ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... thought that this was an innuendo reflecting upon any portion of her own life, I cannot tell; but she replied ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... Walpole himself cared nothing about literature, and nothing about the drama; and he was as little squeamish as man could possibly be in the matter of plain-spoken indecency. What troubled him was not the indecency of the stage, but its political innuendo. It never occurred to him to care whether anything said in Drury Lane or Covent Garden brought a blush to the cheek of any young person; but he was much concerned when he heard of anything said there which was likely to make people laugh at a certain elderly person. ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... experienced actress of years she could not have thrown into this question a greater lack of all innuendo. Miss Weeks, already under her fascination, heard the tone but never thought to notice the quick rise and fall of her visitor's uneasy bosom, and so unwarned, responded ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... want to know the ear marks of a handy man's "story," look out for the smart gentlemen in veiled references without any facts which can be transfixed by either a pin or a handspike. When you find the innuendo without the handhold of fact, lick your lips if you are keen on carrion; for I promise that you have ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... struck home, still further humiliating him in the eyes of the woman he loved, Luisa Valverde. But he now knew she loved not him, and had made up his mind to humble her in a way hitherto untried. Stung by the innuendo, and dropping his clumsy pretence ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... this photograph with disfavour. It always irritated him. The information, conveyed to him by amused friends, that his Aunt Lora had once described Ruth as a jewel in a dust-bin, seemed to him to carry an offensive innuendo directed at himself and the rest of the dwellers in the Bannister home. Also, she had called him a worm. Also, again, his actual encounters with the lady, though few, had been memorably unpleasant. ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... the doorway, and Diana was left to deal as best she might with the innuendo contained in ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... her blood boiling; the second she could not finish for her tears; the third dried her eyes with the fires of fierce resentment. It was not so much what they said; it was what they were obviously afraid to say. It was their circumlocution, their innuendo, their mild surprise, their perfunctory congratulations, their assumption of chivalry and their lack of its essence, that wounded and stung the subject of these effusions. As she raised her flushed face from the last of them, Mr. Steel stood before her ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... straight for it, all out, and Ann was conscious that she was fighting a losing battle in her effort to keep him at a distance. He had never, so far, made deliberate love to her, but there was a certain imperious possessiveness in his manner, a definite innuendo in his gay, audacious speeches which she found it very hard to combat. He seemed entirely oblivious of any lack of response on her part, and there was a light-hearted, irresponsible charm and camaraderie about him that was ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... battering of doors, meanwhile unburdening himself of lengthy solo tirades with great gusto;[2] and all this dished up with a sauce of humor often too racy and piquant for our delicate twentieth-century palate, which has acquired a refined taste for suggestive innuendo, but never relishes calling a ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... him. She had taken great risks for him. Of all the women he had known, she had most truly and unselfishly loved him. And for her years of service he had given her contempt. He reflected, too, that he had, perhaps, made an enemy where he needed a friend. How easy, by innuendo and suggestion, to turn Hedwig against him, Hedwig who already ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... rule, however, criminal lawyers are not in a position to "hammer" the prosecuting officer, but endeavor instead to suggest by innuendo or even open ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... Falling Wall from which only Laramie had returned alive. It was known that he had come back and inference as to who the dead men might be could center only on his two active enemies, Tom Stone and Harry Van Horn. The pawky barn boss, who possessed perfectly the art of tantalizing innuendo, thus stirred the bar-room ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... unaccountable and altogether amazing desire to defend Jasper against the innuendo in the other's tone, and it was with difficulty that ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... lucky dogs who had relatives near by would take the risk and borrow a cousin's rig-out, but we hated them as mean dogs, feeling they were taking an unfair advantage; and, if we got a chance, we would, by innuendo, hint to the lady in the case that these fellows did so much dixie-cleaning that their dungarees were ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... man Thomas, from whose countenance this last innuendo glanced off as from a stone wall, to 'Liza, who answered him with a puzzled scowl. Her foot began to ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... speaking of her disrespectfully, and then at last forgive him, and so part friends. She felt that she would be unhappy to leave him in her present frame of mind; but yet she could hardly bring herself to speak to him of Mr Slope. And how could she allude to the innuendo thrown out by the archdeacon, and thrown out, as she believed, at the instigation of Mr Arabin? She wanted to make him know that he was wrong, to make him aware that he had ill-treated her, in order that the sweetness of her forgiveness might be enhanced. She felt that she liked ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... grinned as he tossed a magazine down on the table. "Sic fama est" was his comment, and Stuart picked up the sheet which his visitor indicated with a jerk of the thumb. The magazine was a weekly devoted ostensibly to the doings of smart society, but its real distinction lay in its innuendo and its genius for sailing so close to the wind of libel that those who moved in the rarified air of exclusiveness read it with a delicious and shuddering mingling of anticipation and dread. Its method was to use no names in the more daring paragraphs, ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... consideration in the eyes of the good widow; but the Sub-Prior's particular and somewhat mysterious inquiries had set her brains to work on the subject of Mysie of the Mill; and she had here asked a broad question, and there she had thrown out an innuendo, and there again she had gradually led on to a conversation on the subject of poor Mysie. And from all inquiries and investigations she had collected, that Mysie was a dark-eyed, laughter-loving wench, with cherry-cheeks, and a skin as white as her father's finest bolted flour, out ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... signification of the word 'shaving.' If to say a man is a 'shaver,' in the sense in which it is applied to the use of money, be bringing him into discredit, then was the plaintiff's declaration sufficient; if not, it was insufficient, being wanting in what is called an 'innuendo.' The dictionaries, and men in general, understand by 'shaving,' 'extortion,' and nothing else. To call a man a 'shaver' is to say he is an 'extortioner,' without going into details. But, in Wall street, and among money-dealers, certain ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... that they had never suffered intimidation, and in their relief they were anxious to laugh at the thing which had for a time subdued them. But they never named it as a cause for fear. Their speech was merely innuendo. ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... face. But, with Armand de Chateaumesnil, the grand seigneur had not been merged in the soldier: the brusquerie of the camp had not overlaid the manner of the courtly school in which he and all his race had been trained; the school of those who would stab their enemy to the heart with sarcasm or innuendo, but scorned to stun him with blatant abuse—of those who would never have dreamt of listening to a woman with covered head, though they might be deaf as the nether millstone to her entreaties or her tears. It was ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... which a coolie would pay a few cash as many dollars are demanded of the foreigner. My boy stands by, however, magnificently proud of his lucrative and important post, yelling precautions to the curious populace to stand away. He hints, he does not declare outright, but by ungentle innuendo allows them to understand that, whatever their private characters may be, to him they are all liars and rogues and thieves. It is all so funny, that one's fatigue is minimized to the last degree by the humor one gets and the novel changes one ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... marred the music of those tones; Mr. Blensop further indicated distaste of the innuendo inherent in Lanyard's use of the word "employer" by ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... crimsoned the intelligent face of the Saxon duke, and an answer as full of innuendo as the Emperor's address was already hovering on his lips, when the chief equerry's entrance gave ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... wholly obey me, for though he no more addressed me directly, he sang at me as he went in a very impudent manner of innuendo, and with an exceedingly ill voice ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... At this point the reader discerns that he has been duped, that nowhere has there been a denial of Whiston's charge that the reading of messianic prophecy in a typical or allegorical or secondary sense is "weak and enthusiastical." On the contrary, the reader finds only the damning innuendo that the two methods—the allegorical and the literal—differ from one another not in kind but in degree of absurdity. After being protected for a long time by all the twists and turns of his creator's irony, the persona finally ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins
... also. But just as clever cooks infuse bitter sauces and sharp seasoning to prevent sweet things from cloying, so these flatterers do not use a genuine or serviceable freedom of speech, but merely a winking and tickling innuendo. He is therefore difficult to detect, like those creatures which naturally change their colour and take that of the material or place near them.[366] But since he deceives and conceals his true character by his imitations, ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... of my ship and cautioned against the bad habits of the natives of North Corner and Barbican; and if I could not be admitted to the mysterious conversation of a captain's table, I should have been told in a clear and decided manner to depart, without the needless puzzle of an innuendo, which I did ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... perplexity she tossed back his innuendo with defiance. "And by the time we meet again I shall have ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... The innuendo was plain, and Yeager put it into words. "I'd be right proud to have him for a friend. But we all know what you mean, Brill. Go right ahead. Try and persuade the boys I'm a rustler, too. They haven't known me on an average much over twenty years. But that doesn't matter. ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... will remember, also, Professor Kennedy," she said, with a great effort controlling her voice, "that I said that Mr. Lockwood was not there to defend himself and I would not have him attacked by innuendo. I meant it to the Senora—I ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... husbands because they were their husbands. Perhaps, you may add, that the remark need not be confined to so small a part of the world; and, entre nous, I am of the same opinion. You must not term this innuendo saucy, for ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... the elder sister, taking no notice of the long familiar innuendo, "that in this case Hilary is right. How people ought to manage in great houses I can not say; but in our small house it will be easier and better not to alter our simple ways. Trusting the girl—if she is a good girl—will only make her more trustworthy; ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... people according to early impressions," I continued, looking straight at the ottoman before me, "because people so often appear to disadvantage at first," but my arrow fell flat to the ground. Miss Merivale had not enough acumen to detect anything personal in the innuendo; resuming her incisive smile ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... without superscription or date and was signed merely with the words, "A Well-Wisher." The innuendo of the ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve
... versions published), and his early Punch work. Mr. Frith tells of Mulready's indignation at Leech's drawing—not at the caricature itself, but at the leech in a bottle, by which the Academician took it for granted that the draughtsman meant to designate him by innuendo as a "blood-sucker;" and of Leech's surprise and pain at being so suspected, and how the two men became fast friends ever after. Once a regular Punch man, Leech immediately expanded, and as quickly hit the taste and fancy of ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... hitherto, that Polly was a man-hater. The manner in which she had scorned Jimmy Osgood on that tour of England would have led anyone to believe that such was the case. Now the tell-tale blush and Eleanor's innuendo, caused Dorothy to reconsider ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... You're not wicked. You're worse. You're a fool. And let me tell you that Paul is the finest boy God ever made. Every decent person is sick and tired of your taking advantage of being a woman and springing every mean innuendo you can think of. Who the hell are you that a person like Paul should have to ask your PERMISSION to go with me? You act like you were a combination of Queen Victoria and Cleopatra. You fool, can't you see how people snicker at you, ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... The innuendo, if designed to make Mowbray smile, was far from succeeding. He stepped forward, with more than usual stiffness in his air, which was never entirely free from self-consequence, and said to Lady Binks, "May I ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... Velasquez saw, by the innuendo in the words of Cortez, that the latter was aware of his intention to deprive him of his command. He had no orders to give, for it was evident that Cortez would not obey them. The latter therefore returned to his ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... Hirsch;—for the rest, admits that the Steuer-Notes were expected to yield a Profit—of 35 per cent:—and, in fact, a dramatic reader can imagine to himself dialogue enough, at different times, going on, partly by words, partly by hint, innuendo and dumb-show, between this Pair of Stage-Beauties. But, for near a fortnight after DOCUMENT FIRST, there is nothing dated, or that ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... pardon me if for a moment I dwell upon what by application is an innuendo conveyed in the admonition of the noble Marquess. I have a suspicion that he considered his advice was needed; he expressed the hope that all who were responsible for administration in India would ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... to the path which he thus marked out for himself, we should have had nothing to say. But he goes out of his way to indulge a spleen unworthy of himself and the occasion, and brings against political opponents, sometimes directly, sometimes by innuendo, charges which, as displaying personal irritation, are impolitic and in bad taste. One fruit of scholarship, and its fairest, he does not seem to have plucked,—one proof of contented conviction in the truth of his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... enough to silence her; or else it was its innuendo that struck the princess dumb with indignation. Lanyard's laugh offered amends for the rudeness, as if he said: "Sorry—but you asked for it, you know." He stepped aside, caught up a handful of her jewels that had been left, a tempting heap, ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... and slights—was the very last person to exercise a mollifying influence upon Sawyer in his existing angry humour. The latter recounted and enlarged upon the insults he had just now suffered. His hearer fanned the flame of indignation with comment and innuendo—recognized Faircloth from the description, and proceeded to wash his hands in scandalous insinuation at ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... warm, and grew pale, as if "angry at something or somebody besides the agent, and of more consequence to himself." Franklin thereupon, taking back his credentials, said, speaking with an innuendo aimed at that which had not been expressed, but which lay plainly visible behind ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... describes their style as "hovering," and their method as "the perfection of lecturing to high-bred audiences." Mr. Marzials quotes this expression "hovering" as admirably descriptive. It is. By judicious selection, by innuendo, here a pitying aposiopesis, there an indignant outburst, the charges are heaped up. Swift was a toady at heart, and used Stella vilely for the sake of that hussy Vanessa. Congreve had captivating manners—of course he had, the dog! And we all know what that meant in those days. ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... [FN125] The innuendo is intelligible and I may draw attention to the humorous skill with which the mother-in-law's ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... so late in the day I come with a different story, a truer but different story. What will they do? Reader, the future is dark, uncertain and long; I dare not trust myself to it if I offend History. Clio and Sir Bartimeus will make hay of my reputation; an innuendo here, a foolish fact there, they know how to do it, and not a soul will suspect the goddess of personal malice or the great historian of pique. Rodriguez gazed then through the deep blue window, forgetful of all around, on battles that had not all the elegance or neatness of which ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... the Rantremly family is a very old one,' I commented innocently, but his lordship did not notice the innuendo. ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... is to be presumed, all his energies occupied in his own private intrigues, had somewhat withdrawn of late from the Jacobite party; and Sir Hugh heard, with his grim, unmoved smile, many a jest and innuendo levelled at the absentee. ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... at last, speaking slowly and softly, and picking his words with care, "I think that is innuendo. I should be relieved, Captain Tremayne, to hear you say that ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... beginning to be called the Throckmartin Mystery and to kill the innuendo and scandalous suspicions which have threatened to stain the reputations of Dr. David Throckmartin, his youthful wife, and equally youthful associate Dr. Charles Stanton ever since a tardy despatch from Melbourne, Australia, reported ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... the rhapsodist himself for its whole and sole object: and that the indignant contempt which it excited in me was as exclusively confined to his employer and suborner. I refer to this Review at present, in consequence of information having been given me, that the innuendo of my 'potential infidelity,' grounded on one passage of my first Lay Sermon, has been received and propagated with a degree of credence, of which I can safely acquit the originator of the calumny. I give the sentences as they stand in the Sermon, premising only that I was speaking ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... code as those picturesque musical people who have concentrated on the canoe-dotted river. Where the promenaders gather, and the bands are playing, and the pretty little theatres compete, the pleasure seeker will be seeking such pleasure as he pleases, no longer debased by furtiveness and innuendo, going his primrose path to a congenial, picturesque, happy and highly desirable extinction. Just over the hills, perhaps, a handful of opulent shareholders will be pleasantly preserving the old traditions of a landed aristocracy, with servants, tenants, vicar, ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... but fair to our Caricaturist to say that the fair Pittite champion, Lady Buckingham, is treated no less mercilessly; and that, even while he was aiming the most outrageous shafts of ridicule and innuendo at the Duchess, his pencil did justice to her extraordinary beauty and charm, both in the prints above mentioned, and in a "Procession to the Hustings after a successful Canvass," in which she leads the ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton
... Tobacco-Parliament; have studied the conditions of it to the most intricate cranny: no English Whipper-in or eloquent Premier knows his St. Stephen's better, or how to hatch a measure in that dim hot element. By hint, by innuendo; by contemplative smoke, speech and forbearance to speak; often looking one way and rowing another,—they can touch the secret springs, and guide in a surprising manner the big dangerous Fireship (for such every State-Parliament ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... things could be put slyly, how the stiffness and awkwardness of native speech could be suppled and decorated, how the innuendo, the turn of words, the nuance, could be imparted to dog-Latin. And if to dog-Latin, why not to genuine French, or ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... and whom the government had declined to assist in an unwarrantable arrangement of the duties and salary of the judicial post he at present occupied. The learned Recorder, justly indignant at this depreciating innuendo, resolved to make an opportunity on the following Monday for his vindication and retort. He rose, therefore, immediately after the skilful and winning appeal of the secretary, and pronounced an invective against ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli
... during the past twenty-four hours? The latter was not unlikely; I knew her whims and her faults by this time. In either case, I had come to feel decidedly uncomfortable, so much so, in fact, that I was content to let the innuendo pass without a retort. It behooved me to keep my temper ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... mind and morals, and a consciousness habituated to interested views and sordid motives; degrading every thing that wears the appearance of greatness, sometimes by plain denial and insolent contempt, and sometimes by wretched innuendo and mingled lie and sophistry; effectually dissipating all the romance of character, and all the enthusiasm of life; hating dignity, having no sympathies with goodness, insensible to the very existence of honor as a spring of human conduct; treating patriotism ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... an object of suspicion and alarm. There was much more to the same effect. There was no distinct charge—nothing tangible, or of which I could defy them to the proof. All was dark doubt and murderous innuendo. There was nothing for which I could claim relief from the laws of my country—more than enough to complete my ruin. I burned with anger and indignation; forgot every thing but the cold-blooded designs of the minister; and, stung to action by the imminent danger in which I stood, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... their unity and strength were embodied in the Emperor. Mme. de Remusat was tired of his ill-breeding: it shocked her to observe his coarse familiarity, to see him sit on a favorite's knee, or twist a bystander's ear till it was afire; to hear him sow dissension among families by coarse innuendo, and to see him crush society that he might rule it. But such things would not have shocked the masses of plain burgher Frenchmen at all. When the querulous lady opened her troubles to the sympathetic Talleyrand, and bemoaned the sad fate which kept her at the imperial court to ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... said under his breath, or openly, or by innuendo as the sentiment of his company demanded, four and twenty canoes laden with the fruits of taxation had come to the Ochori city, and five only of those partly filled had paddled down to headquarters to carry the Ochori tribute to ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... not married yet," continued Mrs. Tucker, oblivious of the innuendo. "Ah Cal," she added archly, "I am afraid you are as fickle as ever. What poor girl in Vineville have you ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... laughter. Whether this tradition be true or not, it is plain that she seems always to have remembered their difference of rank, and to have been rather cold than encouraging. The issue of the acquaintance is a sorry one. Pope revenged himself for her scorn in his worst and most unmanly fashion of innuendo; she, on her side, retorted with lampoons and satire as cruel. One feels glad that she finally left England and that further bickering was impossible. The other two persons were the already mentioned Blounts, each of whom seems at first to have ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... With this cutting innuendo, Tom jumped down from his bough, and threw a stone with a "hoigh!" as a friendly attention to Yap, who had also been looking on while the eatables vanished, with an agitation of his ears and feelings which could hardly have been without bitterness. Yet ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... proceedings of the Revenue Board it will appear that there is no species of peculation from which the Honorable Governor-General has thought it reasonable to abstain." He further says, in answer to Mr. Hastings, "The malicious view with which this innuendo" (an innuendo of Mr. Hastings) "is thrown out is only worthy of a man who, having disgraced himself in the eyes of every man of honor both in Asia and in Europe, and having no imputation to lay to our charge, has dared to attempt in the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... any other side," exploded the artist. "She's worried to death. Not a day passes but some scurrilous penny-a-liner springs some yarn, some beastly innuendo. She's been dodging the fellow for months. In Paris last year she couldn't move without running into him. This year she changed her apartment, and gave orders at the Opera to refuse her address to all who asked for it. Consequently she had some peace. ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... upon me as you have upon Captain Farnsworth," he said, with an insulting leer and in a tone of prurient innuendo. "I am not susceptible, my dear." This more for Farnsworth's benefit than to insult her, albeit he was not in a mood ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... at the pointblank denunciation of a young man, who was himself polite to everybody. She would have done it in a very different way—insinuations, innuendo, etc. ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... She thought she knew his every action, his every thought. The mere suggestion that her husband might have other interests, other attachments of which she knew nothing took her so by surprise that she was disarmed, powerless to answer. The innuendo that he might be unfaithful had gone through her heart like a knife. Of course it was quite ridiculous. He was not that kind of man. It was true he had often gone away on trips that seemed unnecessary, and now she came to think of it Kenneth's absences had of late been both frequent ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... in business nowadays," she returned, not perceiving the innuendo. "I am sure Papa ought to know all about it from the amount of ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... religious persecution of the drink in Arabia, we find it being persecuted by commercial zealots in the United States. And even in the house of its friends, coffee was being stabbed in the back. The coffee merchants themselves presented the spectacle of "knocking" it by inference and innuendo. ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... than half that time like a wolf in sheep's clothing, have I sought the avuncular mansion with an eye to Miss Dora, a fact she seems surprisingly unconscious of, considering how many times, by hint and innuendo, by sigh and look, and tender courtesy, and honest speech, I have shown her the place she occupies in my mind, and given her, as it appears, the right to drive me out of it, if possible. Tom Hayes is her favorite instrument of torture. He is ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... failed to detect anything in the atmosphere of the establishment or in the bearing of its mistress to bear out the innuendo that Gosnold House was infested by a parasitic swarm and "Aunt Abby" the dupe of her own unholy passions. Doubts hummed in Sally's head, and she was abruptly surprised to find the view obscured by a mist of her own making—by, in short, nothing ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... position as a Queen's favourite in any case must have brought aversion upon him. Tarleton, as he half acted, half improvised, is said to have shuffled a pack of cards, and pointed at him, standing behind the Queen's chair, an insolent innuendo: 'See, the knave commands the Queen.' The comedian, if the story be true, could reckon upon the support of a vast body of popular malevolence. Still, as a favourite, Ralegh only shared the lot of his ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... and depressed condition, might have brought about a coldness between them, if not a rupture of their relations. But Hutchings, feeling that he was in the wrong, had contented himself with depreciating Roberts by sneer and innuendo, and so had aroused her generous partisanship. The proceedings of the Faculty naturally increased her sympathy with her lover, and her enthusiastic support did much to revive his confidence in himself. When they parted in the evening he had already begun ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... the miraculous powers ascribed to the primitive Church. Gibbon apparently had not the courage to admit that he agreed with his friend Hume in rejecting miracles altogether. He conceals his drift in a cloud of words, suggesting indirectly with innuendo and sneer his real opinion. But this does not account for the stress he lays on the ascription of miracles. He seems to think that the claim of supernatural gifts somehow had the same efficacy as the gifts themselves would have had, if ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... ignorant that there has been a studied effort— ascribed by me to the common tactics of political warfare—to create the impression, by vague innuendo, that I have used my official position to make money for myself. I know that this charge or imputation is without the slightest foundation, and I now repeat that I never was pecuniarily interested in any question, bill or matter before ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... to breakfast the next morning; but after little more than a nominal presentation of herself there, she escaped from Rose's looks and words of comment and innuendo and regained her own room. And there she sat down in the window to muse, having carefully locked out Clam. She had reason. Clam would certainly have decided that her mistress 'wanted fixing,' if she could have watched the glowing intent eyes with which Elizabeth ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... our young people is being awakened, the curious reader may see for himself if he will expend a few pennies weekly for a month or so upon the halfpenny or penny "comic" papers which are bought so eagerly by boys. They begin upon the facts of sex as affairs of nodding and winking, of artful innuendo and scuffles in the dark. The earnest efforts of Broadbeam's minor kindred to knock the nonsense out of even younger people may be heard at almost any pantomime. The Lord Chamberlain's attempts to stem the tide amaze the English Judges. No scheme for making the best ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells |
