1. To play with, joke or jest at, dally with, touch lightly upon a subject.
2. To refer (a thing) fancifully or figuratively, to compare symbolically, to (something else).
3. To have an oblique, covert, or indirect reference, to point as it were in passing.
4. To make an indirect or passing reference, to glance at, refer indirectly to.
5. The OED says that allude is often used ignorantly as if it were equal to "refer" in its general sense.

Referring indirectly to, hinting at.

1. A play upon words, a word-play, a pun (now considered obsolete).
2. A symbolical reference or likening; a metaphor, parable, allegory (considered obsolete).
3. A covert, implied, or indirect reference; a passing or incidental reference.

1. Playing upon a word, punning (obsolete).
2. Symbolical, metaphorical, figurative (archaic).
3. Containing an allusion; having or abounding with indirect references.

1. To act together secretly to achieve a fraudulent or deceitful purpose; to connive.
2. To act in secret concert with, chiefly in order to trick or baffle some third person or party; to play into one another's hands; to conspire, plot, connive; to play falsely.

1. Literally, a playing together, or into each other's hands.
2. A secret agreement or understanding for purposes of trickery or fraud; underhanded scheming or working with another; deceit, fraud, trickery.

1. To disappoint or deprive of by fraud or deceit; to defraud of.
2. To befool the mind or judgement of, so as to cause what is false to be accepted as true; to bring by deceit into a false opinion or belief; to cheat, deceive, beguile; to impose upon with false impressions or notions.

One who deceives or imposes false impressions or ideas.

1. Anything that deceives the mind with a false impression; a deception; a fixed false opinion or belief with regards to objective things, especially as a form of mental derangement.
2. Something falsely disseminated or believed; deception.

Tending to mislead or deceive; deceptive.

Tending to mislead or deceive; deceptive; having the nature of a delusion.

1. To escape by dexterity or stratagem (a blow, attack, danger, or difficulty).
2. To evade compliance with or fulfillment of (a law, order, demand, request, obligation, etc.).
3. To slip away from, escape adroitly from (a person's grasp or pursuit, literally and figuratively); to evade (curiosity, vigilance, etc.).

The action of escaping dexterously from (danger, pursuit, etc.); of evading (an argument, a command, law, or obligation).

Tending to elude perception or comprehension; difficult to describe.

1. Tending to elude (a danger, argument, law, etc.); of the nature of an evasion or subterfuge.
2. As an object of thought; that which eludes the mental grasp; that which one cannot "get hold of".

To trick, impose upon, deceive with false hopes.

One who illudes; a mocker, deceiver.

The fact or condition of being deceived or deluded by appearances, or an instance of this; a mental state involving the attribution of reality to what is unreal; a false conception or idea; a deception, delusion, fancy.

Characterized by illusions; of the nature of an illusion; illusory.

1. The doctrine stating that the material world is an immaterial product of the senses.
2. The use of illusionary devices and techniques in art or decoration

1. One who produces illusions; specifically, a conjuror or sleight-of-hand performer.
2. An adherent of the doctrine of illusionism.

That which tends to illude or deceive by unreal appearances; productive of illusion or false impressions; deceptive; illusory.

Produced by, based on, or having the nature of an illusion (mistaken perception of reality).

1. A dramatic or mimic representation, usually of a light or humorous character, such as was commonly introduced between the acts of the long mystery-plays or moralities, or exhibited as part of an elaborate entertainment; hence (in ordinary 17-18th c. use) a stage-play, especially of a popular nature, a comedy, a farce.
2. An interval in the performance of a play; the pause between the acts, or the means (dramatic or musical) employed to fill this pause.

Playful.

Making fun of.

Playfulness.

1. In psychiatry; unreal, playlike, quasi, pseudo. Ludic activity: Higher animals have a quantity of energy left after performing all the movements required by their physiological life processes. This excess energy is usually expended (witout purpose) in some way most usually in play activity, called "ludic activity".
2. Of or pertaining to undirected and spontaneously playful behavior.

1. So obviously absurd or incongruous as to be laughable.
2. Ludicrous can describe either something funny that provokes laughter, or something ridiculous and laughable, not worthy of serious consideration.

A deception or mocking.

In Roman antiquity, ludi publici (LYOO digh PUB li sigh) were public games and spectacles, including athletic competitions, horse and chariot races, exhibitions of the arena and theater. Ludi Cercenses (sur SEN seez) were games of the Circus; ludi scenici (SEN i sigh) of the theater. Some were named for particular festivals: ludi Apollinares (uh pol" i NAY reez), in honor of Apollo, chiefly theatrical; ludi Romani (roh MAY nigh), in honor of Jupiter, in September; and ludi Megalenses (meg" uh LEN seez), in honor of the Magna Mater, April 4 to April 10.

1. A game, played with dice and counters on a special board.
2. A kind of simple play.

A clinical term used in human sexuality to describe "playful, meaningless love".

1. In music, a concluding piece or movement played at the end of an oratorio or the like; a concluding voluntary.
2. A written or spoken epilogue; an afterword, a conclusion.

1. A preliminary performance, action, event, or condition, coming before and introducing one of more importance; an introduction, preface (to a literary work).
2. In music, a movement or piece forming the introduction to a musical work; especially such a movement preceding a fugue or forming the first piece of a suite.

The performance of a prelude; a prelude or introduction.

1. A display introductory to a game, performance, or entertainment; a prelude, preliminary essay or attempt.
2. A literary production intended as a preliminary dissertation on a subject which the author intends to treat more fully; a preliminary essay or article; a slight literary production.