Innuendo

1. An oblique hint; a remote allusion or reference, usually derogatory to a person or thing not named; an insinuation.
2. (Law) An averment employed in pleading, to point the application of matter otherwise unintelligible; an interpretative parenthesis thrown into quoted matter to explain an obscure word or words; -- as, the plaintiff avers that the defendant said that he (innuendo the plaintiff) was a thief.

The term is so applied from having been the introductory word of this averment or parenthetic explanation when pleadings were in Latin. The word “meaning” is used as its equivalent in modern forms.