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Definition of "allusive" []

  • Containing or characterized by indirect references: an allusive speech. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "allusive" in a sentence
  • "A Cloudy and rainy Day, staid at home; spent the day Writing, Reading and Chatting -- I think it observable that our Language is more and more sliding into modes of expression allusive and allegorical, approximating to the eastern stile -- Professional Men, Lawyers, Seamen, Soldiers"
  • "The second species of accommodation, called allusive, is often a mere play on words and at times seems due to a misunderstanding of the original meaning."
  • "He's in a Gotham City (the very name allusive of the word gothic, if not outright derived from it) graveyard, in fact, at the grave of Batman, the mainstream superhero of the DC universe most easily associated with horror--from the very concept of his character and its association with vampires (an association made literal in comics from Red Rain to Nosferatu), it's hardly an accident that he's the superhero who appeared in Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson's macabre early issues of Swamp Thing."