allusiveness

Hinting without stating

Allusiveness is the quality of making indirect references—hinting at things rather than stating them outright.

A poem with high allusiveness expects readers to catch echoes of mythology, scripture, or other literature: The allusiveness of T.S. Eliot's work requires extensive footnotes.

The term can suggest richness of meaning or, less charitably, obscurity.

indirectness

obliqueness

Lack of directness

circumlocutionIndirect, wordy expression
innuendoOblique disparaging remark
insinuationIndirect, usually negative suggestion

implication · hinting · intimation · evasion · equivocation · roundaboutness · tangentiality · ambiguity · opacity · coded

suggestiveness

evocation

Calling forth to mind

connotationImplied sense, not dictionary
overtoneSubsidiary meaning or harmonic
undertoneSubdued background quality

resonance · undercurrent · symbolism · metaphor · allegory · layering · subtext · echo · trace · whisper

referentiality

reference

Directing attention elsewhere

citationMention of a source
nodBrief head tilt
winkBrief one-eyed closure

gesture · mention · invocation · callback · intertext · quotation · homage · echo · literary · intertextuality

Opposites

directness of communication

allusivenessexplicitness

Quality of being unambiguous

directness · plainness · straightforwardness · bluntness · literalness

referential complexity

allusivenesssimplicity

Lack of complexity

plainness · accessibility · literalism · surface meaning

interpretive demand

allusivenessclarity

State of being understandable

transparency · simplicity · accessibility · obviousness · self-evidence

Family

illusion, elusive, prelude, delusion, delude, illusory, allusion, collusion, allude

Familiarity: Top 1,000,000
Profile: Used worldwide · Timeless · Abstract · Rated G