innuendo [M16th] Early legal documents would introduce an explanation of a word with innuendo, meaning ‘that is to say, to wit’, as in ‘he (innuendo the plaintiff) is a thief’ from a mid 17th-century glossary. Innuendo comes from a Latin word meaning ‘by nodding at, by pointing to’, from in ‘towards’ and nuere ‘to nod’. In the late 17th century it became possible to have an innuendo, ‘an explanation’, and also the modern sense, ‘an oblique remark or hint’.