Allude is a word with playful roots—literally. It comes from the Latin alludere, which means "to play with," and shares the root of Latin ludere ("to play") with other English words, such as ludicrous and delude. One of the former meanings of allude was "to engage in wordplay": this sense is now long obsolete.
Although some people think that allude must always specifically entail an indirect reference, this is not the case; people have been using allude in the sense of "to refer to directly" for well over a century (as in "The Man Without a Country," the short story by Edward Everett Hale from 1863: "He never alluded so directly to his story again..."). So while allude may more commonly be used in the sense of expressing something indirectly, it is neither uncommon nor improper to use it to mean something more direct.
Allude need not always be followed by the preposition to, although that is the most common construction in modern usage.
As alluded to previously, the entire universe may actually exist in a higher-dimensional space.—Clifford A. Pickover, Surfing Through Hyperspace, 1999Adams had alluded to slavery in 1816, when he confided to Jefferson that "there will be greater difficulties to preserve our Union, than You and I, our Fathers Brothers Friends … have had to form it."—Joseph J. Ellis, American Heritage, May/June 1993The more challenging problems in fact—ones that the optimists rarely allude to—will be the problems of success.—Charles R. Morris, Atlantic, October 1989
Mrs. Simons alluded to some health problems, without being specific.
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In addition, prosecutors allude, financial fraud is not a criminal act limited to younger people.—Michael McCann, Sportico.com, 24 Jan. 2025 Maybe Monte alluded too much, or Josh just caught a whiff of something that felt dirty.—Marah Eakin, Vulture, 2 Jan. 2025 It’s alluded them up to this point — like Jack says in Season 5, maybe there’s another way, your dream is now my dream.—Nellie Andreeva, Deadline, 20 Dec. 2024 In November, Grimes alluded in a lengthy tweet to having struggled through a custody battle.—Hannah Dailey, Billboard, 27 Dec. 2024 See all Example Sentences for allude
Word History
Etymology
borrowed from Latin allūdere "to play or romp beside, make a playful or mocking allusion to," from ad-ad- + lūdere "to play" — more at ludicrous
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