Innuendo Examples

An innuendo is a statement that is typically negative and critical, but it is suggestive. Instead of coming right out and stating the negative or rude remark, a person uses innuendo to suggest. Innuendo can also be used to make sexually suggestive remarks.

Shakespeare's Sonnet 151-Sexually Suggestive Lines:

My soul doth tell my body that he may

Triumph in love: flesh stays no further reason

But rising at thy name doth point out thee

As his triumphant prize.

From Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet-Also a sexually suggestive passage:

True; and therefore women, being the weaker vessels, are ever thrust to the wall: therefore I will push Montague's men from the wall, and thrust his maids to the wall.

In Shakespeare's Macbeth, Lady Macbeth insinuates that her husband is a coward-or weak-hearted:

Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be What thou art promised: yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o' the milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great; Art not without ambition, but without The illness should attend it: [...] Hie thee hither, That I may pour my spirits in thine ear; And chastise with the valour of my tongue All that impedes thee from the golden round, Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem To have thee crown'd withal.