(n.) A reference to something supposed to be known, but not explicitly mentioned; a covert indication; indirect reference; a hint.
Example Sentences:
(1) Both sides sought a decisive goal in a frenetic finish but ultimately the league leaders and the side fighting relegation shared the points and Mourinho wound up making dark allusions to the influence of officials .
(2) The research reported here comprises an empirical investigation of the phenomenon of typographic allusion.
(3) Although psychiatric literature abounds in allusions to the phenomenon of "déjà vu", few communications were devoted to an analysis of this interesting psychological state.
(4) Mislabelling of shadow as distractor words and vice versa, on recall and recognition tasks, showed the strongest correlation with allusive thinking.
(5) Alain's allusions to unfamiliar subjects, whether literary or not, are another problem he shares with many French writers – though these aren't really a problem for the translator.
(6) Glossy hair with waves and curls: this evokes allusions to Moorish Spain and Mexico.
(7) At the recent Encountering the Anthropocene conference convened by the University of Sydney, an Indigenous elder described to me some of the allusive stories of his people's empathetic relationships with whales.
(8) Like all Hamilton's interiors it is a space of strange allusiveness and ambiguities.
(9) There have been months of speculation, ranging from the discovery in January that variations on the name of the New York City FC team had been registered as domain names , to a recent heavy-handed allusion Commissioner Garber made to there being an announcement expected in a few weeks — widely taken as a reference to the forthcoming Manchester City vs Chelsea friendly at Yankee Stadium.
(10) is an allusion to the disbelief that she and the others feel at how people on benefits are being treated, she says.
(11) It is hypothesized that allusive, as compared with non-allusive thinkers, have a broader but less intense attention process associated with weaker inhibition.
(12) Pressed by Marr on whether he would raise the level of fuel duty, Osborne would not be drawn but made vague allusions to his party’s manifesto commitments.
(13) The use of actors enabled Barnard to introduce further layers of allusion to Dunbar's career.
(14) He washed volunteers’ feet on the steps of the capitol building in an allusion to the gospel of John, in which Jesus washes the disciples in what Cato said was an act of love “with no caveat”.
(15) Rendering these pronunciations on paper gives Riddley Walker the physical intimacy of throat and mouth working, but there's depth and allusion to it to.
(16) Horace Walpole (1717-1797) coined the term serendipity in 1754 in allusion to an ancient oriental legend of the "Three Princes of Serendip".
(17) But the headline is also an ironic allusion to the state-funded radio service that broadcast anti-communist propaganda around the world during the cold war.
(18) The whole King James Bible is littered with literary allusions, almost as many as Shakespeare (to quote that distinguished authority Anon, the trouble with Hamlet is it's so full of clichées).
(19) Gay viewers seeking mainstream self-identification in the cinema have usually had to settle for winking nuances and allusions, or at worst, the more oblivious homoeroticism of sundry Michael Bay-style brawnfests.
(20) The only allusion to the controversy of the continued presence in this country that I could find in the museum was a notice near the entrance to the Duveen Gallery.
Euphemism
Definition:
(n.) A figure in which a harts or indelicate word or expression is softened; a way of describing an offensive thing by an inoffensive expression; a mild name for something disagreeable.
Example Sentences:
(1) 9.41pm BST Dodgers 0 - Cardinals 0, bottom of the 2nd The "demeaning euphemism for overweight" Matt Adams lines out to Adrian Gonzalez for the second out of the inning.
(2) General Bantz Craddock, who instituted the restraint chair and twice-daily intubation in 2006 , said that he designed it to make hunger-striking less " convenient " – a not terribly subtle euphemism for more painful – and that "pretty soon [after these practices were introduced]…they decided it wasn’t worth it."
(3) To avoid discussing the hunger strike and its rationale, they introduced a euphemism when asked about it: “long-term non-religious fasting”.
(4) I liked working there in the "people department" (a new euphemism for the women's section in the age of feminism), since it offered handy distractions from the horror of the blank page.
(5) Craving boldness is too often a euphemism for wishing Labour's predicament were something other than what it is; that there was a way to promise immediate improvement in everyone's lives without giving them money.
(6) She's both a "certain type of woman" (divorced single mothers must only be referred to in euphemism) and an object of desire.
(7) On Tuesday Khamenei used the expression "heroic leniency", which is being interpreted as a euphemism for a softer stance on foreign policy.
(8) And they gave us the word “euphemism” in the first place – “to use a favourable word in place of an inauspicious one”.
(9) In fact, the word 'torture' does not appear anywhere, nor even the preferred diplomatic euphemism, 'ill-treatment'.
(10) There were euphemisms (“an incident”, “an inappropriate action on my part”); there were vague and reassuring references to the woman (“she has accepted my apology”); and there were mind-your-own-business obfuscations (“a deeply personal business”).
(11) Political rhetoric now as in Orwell's day exploits not only euphemism ("austerity") but dysphemism ("skivers") and loaded metaphor ("fiscal cliff"): in our time, weaponised soundbites are deliberately engineered to smuggle the greatest amount of persuasion into the smallest space, to be virally replicated on rolling news.
(12) There is a serious risk that, sooner rather than later, “self-employment” will simply be a euphemism for regular work in which the employee is unprotected by minimum-wage legislation or any other workplace entitlements.
(13) The NSC will also be put in charge of a £1.3bn prosperity fund that will focus on issues like “improving the business climate” – a term too often used as a euphemism for the promotion of ideologically-driven policies like the privatisation of public services .
(14) Labelling Matters , a campaign set up by Compassion in World Farming and the RSPCA among others, is calling for labels that discard euphemisms in favour, for instance, of “intensive indoor” for pork from pigs that never go outside and “permanently housed” for dairy cows that never graze in fields.
(15) According to state media, Ji Jianye is being investigated for "severe violations of discipline and law" – a euphemism for embezzlement, bribery and other official abuses.
(16) But what this kind of legislation would do is promote “information-sharing” – a euphemism for cutting a giant hole in our privacy laws that allow companies like Sony or 20th Century Fox (or Google or Facebook) to hand over all sorts of our personal information to the government with no legal process whatsoever.
(17) Work was a widely used euphemism for killing during the genocide.
(18) "Dressing for pleasure" and "fun fashion" get a bad rap, especially for women in their middle age, as it is generally assumed that this is a euphemism for women dressing like clowns and not realising that, at their age (huff, huff), they should be wearing beige cashmere.
(19) Records of military and congressional investigations into the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre illustrate that "scalping" and other terms were euphemisms for Colorado Volunteers mutilating Cheyenne people and wearing and displaying genitalia, fetuses, and other "battle trophies".
(20) Apart from using the words "organic" as a euphemism for "traditional", his ideas seem to have matured little in the 25 years.