Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The act of alluding; indirect reference.
  • noun An instance of indirect reference.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A play upon words; a pun.
  • noun A symbolical reference or comparison; a metaphor.
  • noun A passing or casual reference; a slight or incidental mention of something, either directly or by implication; a hint or reference used by way of illustration, suggestion, or insinuation: as, a classical allusion; an allusion to a person's misconduct.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete A figurative or symbolical reference.
  • noun A reference to something supposed to be known, but not explicitly mentioned; a covert indication; indirect reference; a hint.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An indirect reference; a hint; a reference to something supposed to be known, but not explicitly mentioned; a covert indication.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun passing reference or indirect mention

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Late Latin allūsiō, allūsiōn-, a playing with, from Latin allūsus, past participle of allūdere, to play with; see allude.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin allūsiōnem, accusative singular of allūsiō ("the act of playing with"), from allūdō ("play with; allude"), from al-, combining form of ad ("to"), + lūdō ("play"): compare French allusion.

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Examples

  • The origin of the allusion is the myth of Philomel who, after her brother-in-law

    Blake & Virtuality: An Exchange 2005

  • The new taxon is named Gamerabaena, and the authors note, under etymology, "'Gamera refers to the fictional, firebreathing turtle from the 1965 movie Gamera, in allusion to his fire-breathing capabilities and the Hell Creek Formation ..."

    "Look at everything around us. Look at everything we've done." greygirlbeast 2010

  • Every thought that was devoted to it was an extreme anguish, and every word that I spoke in allusion to it caused my lips to quiver, and my heart to palpitate.

    Chapter 2 2010

  • The new taxon is named Gamerabaena, and the authors note, under etymology, "'Gamera refers to the fictional, firebreathing turtle from the 1965 movie Gamera, in allusion to his fire-breathing capabilities and the Hell Creek Formation ..."

    "Look at everything around us. Look at everything we've done." greygirlbeast 2010

  • With sense 2 cf. French morion punishment inflicted on soldiers (1605), so called in allusion to the hat suspended at the end of the shaft of the halberd which held the soldier while the punishment was inflicted.

    Medallion Vulcan | SciFi, Fantasy & Horror Collectibles 2009

  • Every thought that was devoted to it was an extreme anguish, and every word that I spoke in allusion to it caused my lips to quiver, and my heart to palpitate.

    Chapter 19 2010

  • The audible allusion is to the passage that records the sudden eruption of joy at the top of stanza IX in the "Intimations" Ode, more specifically a few lines on, when the poet says that it is not for the

    The 'Power of Sound' and the Great Scheme of Things: Wordsworth Listens to Wordsworth 2008

  • The allusion is to that of a childlike state, in which faith is absolute and without contradiction.

    The Paradox Of Adam And Eve « Unambiguously Ambidextrous 2008

  • The allusion is to that of a childlike state, in which faith is absolute and without contradiction.

    2008 February 18 « Unambiguously Ambidextrous 2008

  • And there's what I'll call (in allusion to James Thomson's "Seasons") a "long ellipsis": three periods with spaces in between them to indicate when a sentence or more has been removed.

    Archive 2008-05-01 2008

Comments

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  • Often confused in writing with "illusion."

    March 26, 2009

  • You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? James 4:4a is an allusion to covenant unfaithfulness.

    December 15, 2010

  • This caused developers to refer to the Internet as the wild, wild Web, an allusion to the days of the wild, wild West in the US when law and order were pretty much nonexistent.

    December 29, 2010

  • It would seem that this is an allusion to people who oppose any "intrusion" of religious

    considerations into the realm of practical affairs, and thus - often unwittingly, thinking

    that they are "but improving things" - contribute to the moral and social confusion

    referred to in the subsequent verse.

    http://www.muhammad-asad.com/Message-of-Quran.pdf

    March 2, 2018