allude
/əˈlud/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 2.70 in modern English
7
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To refer to something indirectly or by suggestion; to invoke it by implication rather than mention.
Intransitive verb
Example Sentences
- "First, she alluded to her husband as "the man at home looking after the children". Then she referred to him as "my George"."
- "These speeches . . . do seem to allude unto such ministerial garments as were then in use."
- "It was aptly said by Newton that "whatever is not deduced from facts must be regarded as hypothesis," but hypothesis appears to us a title too honourable for the crude guessings to which we allude."
- "We live our lives in three dimensions for our threescore and ten allotted years. Yet every branch of contemporary science, from statistics to cosmology, alludes to processes that operate on scales outside of human experience: the millisecond and the nanometer, the eon and the light-year."
Etymology
From Middle French alluder, from Latin alludere (“to play with or allude”), from ad + ludere (“to play”). See also al-.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /əˈlud/
- British English: /əˈljuːd/