a. [f. L. allūs- ppl. stem of allūd-ĕre to ALLUDE + -IVE, as if ad. L. *allūsīvus.]
† 1. Playing upon a word, punning. Obs.
1656. Fuller, Hist. Camb. (1840), 174. Dr. Thomas Nevyle … practising his own allusive motto, Ne vile velis.
b. Her. Allusive Arms, called also canting or punning arms: those in which the charges suggest or play upon the bearer’s name or title, as the martlets (OFr. arondel young swallow) borne by the Duke of Arundel.
2. Symbolical, metaphorical, figurative. arch.
1605. Bacon, Adv. Learn., II. 18. The diuision of Poesie … is into Poesie Narrative, Representative, and Allusive.
1635. Brathwait, Arcad. Princ., II. 149. The allusive meaning of these emblemes.
1672. Jacomb, Comm. Rom., viii. (1868), 205. No better than an … allusive, metaphorical son of God.
1780. Boswell, Johnson (1847), 663/1. Johnson … professed that he could bring him out into conversation, and used this allusive expression, ‘Sir, I can make him rear.’
1850. Leitch, trans. Müller’s Anc. Art, § 128. 102. It represents [it] … in the allusive manner of antiquity.
3. Containing an allusion; having or abounding in indirect references.
1607. Topsell, Four-footed Beasts (1673), 341. According to the allusive saying of the Mantuan.
c. 1630. Jackson, Creed, VI. xv. Wks. VII. 109. No concludent proof, but allusive only.
1662. Evelyn, Chalcogr. (1769), 18. More allusive yet to our plate.
1864. Spect., No. 1875. 6. Modern ephemeral writing, being essentially allusive from the necessity of condensation, is crowded with allusions to historical facts.
1875. Fortnum, Majolica, xv. 172. The inscription … allusive, in all probability, to the reconciliation of the rival houses.
