Dictionary

allusive en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• (US) audio
• /əˈljuː.sɪv/ (UK)
• /əˈluː.sɪv/ (US)
• /əˈluː.sɪv/ (UK)

Etymology

From Latin allūs-, past participle stem of allūdere (“to joke, jest”; see allude) + -ive. See also al-.

Meanings

1. that contains or makes use of allusions (indirect references or hints)
   • 2013, Nick Nicholas, George Baloglou (translators and editors), Introduction, Unknown author, An Entertaining Tale of Quadrupeds, [14th c, Παιδιόφραστος διήγησις τῶν ζῴων τῶν τετραπόδων], page 87, The Book is a more allusive work than the Tale, which leads to speculation on whether the digressions in both works might not merely be a case of a rambling narrator.
   • The footnotes ensure that the lines become more allusive and more polysemantic, vacillating between transubstantiation and ghostly intimations. 2010, James Matthews, “Late Modernism and the Marketplace”, in Edwina Keown, Carol Taaffe, editors, Irish Modernism, page 172:
   • Around they go, taking in the poem's allusive system of images and its narrative density, the emotional heat of its subject matter, its increasing cultural salience re: women, re: trauma, re: bodies, re: life at the end of the world. 2023, Brandon Taylor, chapter 1, in The Late Americans, pages 1-2:
   • English poetry is compelled by the stubbornness of the language continually to renounce the too obviously poetic: but in seeking to be more precise, more dense and more allusive, Russian poetry has never had to give up the straightforward traditional intoxications of sound and rhyme. 1984, John Bayley, Two pieces on translating Mandelstam: Selected Essays, page 149:

Forms

Deriveds

allusively · nonallusive · allusiveness · unallusive · hyperallusive · allusivity

Relateds

allude · allusion

Synonyms

suggestive

Translations (16)

ga tagrach (containing or making use of allusions) · cs plný narážek (containing or making use of allusions) · it allusivo (containing or making use of allusions) · hy ակնարկիչ (containing or making use of allusions) · pt alusivo (containing or making use of allusions) · bg загатващ (containing or making use of allusions) · hy ակնարկող (containing or making use of allusions) · ro aluziv (containing or making use of allusions) · nl zinspelend (containing or making use of allusions) · fi vihjaileva (containing or making use of allusions) · yue 暗指嘅 (containing or making use of allusions) · es alusivo (containing or making use of allusions) · fr allusif (containing or making use of allusions) · ca al·lusiu (containing or making use of allusions) · pl aluzyjny (containing or making use of allusions) · bg намекващ (containing or making use of allusions)