  Motivated by the widespread experimental observations of nematicity in
strongly underdoped cuprate superconductors, we investigate the possibility of
enhanced nematic fluctuations in the vicinity of a Mott insulator that displays
N\'eel-type antiferromagnetic order. By performing a strong-coupling expansion
of an effective model that contains both Cu-$d$ and O-$p$ orbitals on the
square lattice, we demonstrate that quadrupolar fluctuations in the
$p$-orbitals inevitably generate a biquadratic coupling between the spins of
the $d$-orbitals. The key point revealed by our classical Monte Carlo
simulations and large-$N$ calculations is that the biquadratic term favors
local stripe-like magnetic fluctuations, which result in an enhanced nematic
susceptibility that onsets at a temperature scale determined by the effective
Heisenberg exchange $J$. We discuss the impact of this type of nematic order on
the magnetic spectrum and outline possible implications on our understanding of
nematicity in the cuprates.
