allusiveness


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al·lu·sive

 (ə-lo͞o′sĭv)
adj.
Containing or characterized by indirect references: an allusive speech.

al·lu′sive·ly adv.
al·lu′sive·ness n.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Noun1.allusiveness - a quality characterized by indirect reference
indirectness - having the characteristic of lacking a true course toward a goal
Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.
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References in classic literature ?
With all his healthy contempt for the spirit dictating such speeches, the atrocious allusiveness of the words had its effect on Chief Inspector Heat.
In the first part of this essay, I trace how allusiveness in "Childe Roland" at once connects to and disconnects from the ways in which medieval ubi sunt confronts the threat of deracination from prior cultural, social, or poetic structures and ideals.
Powers joins a long tradition of nature-infused American writing:" there is a richness and allusiveness to the prose that reaches back as far as Thoreau's Walden, and Emerson" (Guardian).
Documenting this cross-play of allusiveness here and throughout Shakespeare and the Admiral's Men is another of Rutter's central achievements.
This wide-ranging allusiveness and self-referentiality builds in the penultimate poem ("Poor little poem, nobody likes you," says the poet), and culminates in the title poem, saved for last, which opens so winningly:
"It betrays the awkwardness of an early attempt to pray in a language that is not only traditionally biblical in its allusiveness, but that is also ecologically sensitive."
Isn't it about time we forgot the story of Glazunov's drunken conducting sabotaging its premiere and causing a nervous breakdown in the young composer, and instead concentrated on its qualities of cogency and emotional allusiveness, looking forward as it does across half-a-century to the gritty Symphonic Dances?
We cannot expect from Hawthorne much more of bare bodies and sexual desire than such phallic allusiveness, at least in 1830s New England.
Martin begins with one that he calls "Word Studies" in which each student chooses a word to explore, such as Iluvatar or Beorn, in order to introduce them to the rich allusiveness of the terms, their etymologies, associations, and histories.
What has been sacrificed is the decorative elaboration of the original, as well as the extra dimension of allusiveness it provides.
"We may apply to 'Heart of Darkness' Thomas Manns words on Death in Venice: a little work of 'inexhaustible allusiveness.'"