allusive

English

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /əˈluː.sɪv/, /əˈljuː.sɪv/
• (US) IPA^(key): /əˈluː.sɪv/
  • Homophone: elusive

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Adjective

allusive (comparative more allusive, superlative most allusive)

1. that contains or makes use of allusions (indirect references or hints)
   • 1984, John Bayley, Two pieces on translating Mandelstam: Selected Essays, page 149:

     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.

   • 2010, James Matthews, “Late Modernism and the Marketplace”, in Edwina Keown, Carol Taaffe, editors, Irish Modernism, page 172:

     The footnotes ensure that the lines become more allusive and more polysemantic, vacillating between transubstantiation and ghostly intimations.

   • 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.

   • 2023, Brandon Taylor, chapter 1, in The Late Americans, pages 1-2:

     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.

   Synonym: suggestive

Derived terms

• allusively
• allusiveness
• allusivity
• unallusive

 

Related terms

• allude
• allusion

Translations

containing or making use of allusions

• Armenian: ակնարկող (aknarkoġ), ակնարկիչ (aknarkičʻ)
• Bulgarian: намекващ (bg) (namekvašt), загатващ (bg) (zagatvašt)
• Catalan: al·lusiu (ca)
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 暗指嘅 (am³ zi² ge³)

• Dutch: zinspelend (nl)
• Finnish: vihjaileva
• French: allusif (fr)
• Irish: tagrach
• Italian: allusivo (it)
• Polish: aluzyjny (pl)
• Portuguese: alusivo
• Romanian: aluziv (ro)
• Spanish: alusivo (es)

Anagrams

• eluvials

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /a.ly.ziv/

• Audio (CAN)

  (file)

• Homophone: allusives

Adjective

allusive

1. feminine singular of allusif

Italian

Adjective

allusive

1. feminine plural of allusivo