Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Illusive |
IllusiveAdjective1. Based on or having the nature of an illusion; "illusive hopes of of finding a better job"; "Secret activities offer presidents the alluring but often illusory promise that they can achieve foreign policy goals without the bothersome debate and open decision that are staples of democracy". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "illusive" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1791. (references) |
Note: Illusive \Il*lu"sive\, adjective. [See Illude.]. (Websters 1913) |
Synonym: IllusiveSynonym: illusory (adj). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Deception | Adjective: deceived; Verb: deceiving; cunning; prestigious, prestigiatory; deceptive, deceptious; deceitful, covinous; delusive, delusory; illusive, illusory; elusive, insidious, ad captandum vulgus. |
Error | Illusive, illusory; delusive; mock, ideal; (imaginary); spurious; deceitful; perverted. |
Reasoning, | Deceptive, sophistical, jesuitical; illusive, illusory; specious, hollow, plausible, ad captandum, evasive; irrelevant. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Illusive |
| English words defined with "illusive": Illusively, Illusiveness. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "illusive": Affluence, Almanac ♦ Canary Birds ♦ Paint and Painting. (references) |
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| "Illusive" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Illusive" is used about 2 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 100% | 2 | 245,945 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
design illusive | 8 |
concept illusive | 5 |
illusive original | 4 |
illusive | 3 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "illusive"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | iluzor (illusory), i rremë (affected, delusive, delusory, fallible, false, fictitious, fictive, hollow, lying, mendacious, meretricious, mock, out of whole cloth, pasteboard, phoney, phony, pinchbeck, plastic, pseudo, simulated, spoof, spurious, supposititious, untruthful), i gënjeshtërt (false, illusory, lying, mock, truthless, untrue). (various references) | |
Arabic | موهم (illusory), مواري, مضلل (deceitful, deceptive, false, misguiding, misleading, perverting), مخادع (artful, bluff, bluffer, crafty, deceitful, deceptive, delusive, devious, dishonest, disingenuous, double, double dealing, double-tongued, face, false, fraudulent, hustler, illusory, indirect, insincere, misguiding, misleading, sly, trickish, tricky, underhand, wily), خادع (bluffy, crafty, deceitful, deceptive, delusive, delusory, dishonest, double dealing, fallacious, false, fool, illusory, insincere, misleading, rip off, trickish, tricky, wily). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | илюзорен (delusive, delusory, illusional, illusory, insubstantial, phantom, unreal, visionary). (various references) | |
Czech | iluzorní, klamný (deceptive, delusory, fallacious, false, illusory, misleading, untrue). (various references) | |
Farsi | مشتبه سازنده (Illusory), وهمی (Bizarre, Illusory, Imaginary, Uncanny, Unreal, Unrealistic), غیرواقعی (Illusory, Untrue). (various references) | |
Finnish | utukuva (illusive image). (various references) | |
French | irréel (illusory), illusoire (illusory). (various references) | |
German | illusorisch (illusiv, illusively, illusorily, illusory). (various references) | |
Greek | απατηλόσ (catchy, colorable, deceitful, deceptive, delusive, elusive, elusory, fallacious, fraudulent, hollow, illusory, specious, tricky), ψευδαισθητικόσ. (various references) | |
Hungarian | csalóka (delusive, delusory, elusive, fallacious, illusory, misleading, phantasmagoric, vain). (various references) | |
Indonesian | pura-pura (affect, affection, mock, ostensible, pretend, pretended, quasi). (various references) | |
Italian | illusorio (delusive, false, illusory). (various references) | |
Manx | molleydagh (disappointing, dupe, fallguy), kialgagh (calculated, calculating, circumventory, crafty, deceitful, deceiving, deceptive, fallacious, fly, guileful, insidious, perfidious, seditious, treacherous, tricky, wily), breagagh (bogus, delusive, extravagant, false, fictitious, imitation, lying, pinchbeck, spurious). (various references) | |
Norwegian | illusorisk (delusive, illusory). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | illusiveay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | ilusivo, ilusório (colorable, colourable, deceptive, delusive, elusory, illusory, misleading, mismanage, skin deep, specious, unreal), visionário (air-monger, castle builder, doctrinaire, doctrine, dreamer, fey, notional, star gazer, transcendental, viewy, visional, visionary). (various references) | |
Romanian | iluzoriu (airy, apparent, deceitful, elusory, illusory, vain), nereal (illusory, unreal). (various references) | |
Russian | обманчивый (captious, deceitful, deceptive, delusive, delusory, double meaning, double-meaning, misleading, specious). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | iluzoran (illusory, make believe), varljiv (fallacious, false, loaded, meretricious, misleading, specious, treacherous, tricky). (various references) | |
Spanish | ilusorio (delusive, delusory, elusive, illusory, phantom, unreal, unrealistic), ilusivo. (various references) | |
Swedish | illusorisk (delusive, delusory, illusory, phantasmal), bedräglig (cheated, colorable, colourable, deceitful, deceptive, delusive, delusory, elusive, fallacious, false, fraudulent, illusory, underhand). (various references) | |
Turkish | yanıltıcı (captious, colorable, elusory, fallacious, illusory, misleading, perversive, specious, token), hayali (aerial, airy, cardboard box, chimerical, delusive, Faerie, faery, fanciful, fantastic, fantastical, fictional, fictitious, fictive, illusory, imaginary, imaginative, insubstantial, phantasmal, spectral, unreal, visionary), aldatıcı (baffling, beguiling, catchy, colorable, colored, coloured, deceptive, delusive, devious, dishonest, double dealing, elusory, fake, fallacious, googly, hype, illusory, indirect, specious, treacherous, trickish, tricksy, tricky). (various references) | |
Ukranian | ілюзорний (delusive, delusory, elusory, illusory, phantasmal), облудний (affected, captious, counterfeit, deceitful, fraudulent, put on), примарний (apparitional, dreamlike, dreamy, elfish, elvish, ghastly, ghostly, illusory, phantasmal, spectral, spooky, visional). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | viển vông (air, illusory), l m mắc lừa hão huyền, đánh lừa (brown, colourable, delusive, delusory). (various references) | |
Welsh | lledrithiol (illusory). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "illusive": illusively, illusiveness, illusivenesses. (additional references) | |
| |
"Illusive" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: ilusiv. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "illusive" (pronounced i'luw"siv) |
| 5 | -l uw" s i v | allusive, collusive, conclusive, elusive, exclusive, inclusive, inconclusive, nonexclusive, reclusive. |
| 4 | -uw" s i v | abusive, conducive, intrusive, obtrusive, unobtrusive. |
| 3 | -s i v | abrasive, adhesive, aggressive, apprehensive, aversive, coercive, cohesive, comprehensive, compulsive, convulsive, corrosive, counteroffensive, decisive, defensive, depressive, derisive, discursive, dismissive, dispersive, divisive, effusive, erosive, evasive, excessive, expansive, expensive, explosive, expressive, extensive, hypertensive, impassive, impressive, impulsive, incisive, indecisive, inexpensive, inoffensive, invasive, massive, missive, nonresponsive, obsessive, offensive, oppressive, passive, pensive, permissive, persuasive, pervasive, possessive, progressive, recessive, reflexive, regressive, repressive, repulsive, responsive, submissive, subversive, successive, unimpressive, unresponsive. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "e-i-i-l-l-s-u-v" | |
-2 letters: lilies, villus. | |
-3 letters: evils, ileus, ivies, lieus, lisle, lives, veils, villi, vills. | |
-4 letters: ells, evil, ills, isle, leis, lies, lieu, live, lues, luvs, sell, sill, slue, veil, vies, vile, vill, vise. | |
-5 letters: ell, els, ill, lei, leu, lev, lie, lis, luv, sei, sel, sue, use, vie, vis. | |
| Words containing the letters "e-i-i-l-l-s-u-v" | |
+2 letters: illusively. | |
+3 letters: impulsively, inclusively, surveilling. | |
+4 letters: illusiveness, illustrative, silviculture, valvulitises, volubilities. | |
+5 letters: silvicultures, vaudevillians. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)49 6C 6C 75 73 69 76 65 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
|
| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
|
| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
|
| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
|
Morse Code (1836) (references).. .-.. .-.. ..- ... .. ...- . |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
|
Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01001001 01101100 01101100 01110101 01110011 01101001 01110110 01100101 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)I l l u s i v e |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0049 006C 006C 0075 0073 0069 0076 0065 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
|
Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)4378788785758871 |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Usage Frequency 6. Expressions: Internet 7. Translations: Modern 8. Derivations | 9. Rhymes 10. Anagrams 11. Orthography 12. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
