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sinuate

/ˈsɪnju.eɪt/verb, adjective

sinuate is a verb meaning “To advance in wavy or curvy manner, to bend, to curve, to wind in and out” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled S-I-N-U-A-T-E, and it appears about once in every 25 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).

What does sinuate mean?

verb

  1. 1

    To advance in wavy or curvy manner, to bend, to curve, to wind in and out

    A road that sinuates through the valley.

adjective

  1. 1

    sinuous

  2. 2

    Having wavy indentation on its border or edge.

  3. 3

    Roughly the same height for most of its length, becoming much shallower and then curving back towards the stem before reaching the attachment point.

    In this group of mushrooms, the attachment of the gills to the stipe is sinuate.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce sinuate?

  • /ˈsɪnju.eɪt/

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Forms of sinuate

  • sinuates present, singular, he/she/it
  • sinuating participle, present
  • sinuated participle, past
  • more sinuate comparative
  • most sinuate superlative

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is sinuate?

Sinuate appears about once in every 25 million words in written English, the 150,355th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Sinuate in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchsinuer (to curve or bend)
Spanishfestoneado (roughly the same height for most of its length)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does sinuate come from?

From Latin sinuatus, past participle of sinuare (“to wind, bend”), from sinus (“a bend”). See also sine, from Latin sinus.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).