illusive
/ɪˈluːsɪv/
"illusive" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“illusive” is uncommon English (frequency #69,945 among 2,140 “I” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #69,945
- frequency rank, English
- 2,140
- “I” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Subject to or pertaining to an illusion, often used in the sense of an unrealistic expectation or an unreachable goal or outcome.
Corpus desk
Index EN-illusive · illusive · English
illusive · rank #69,945 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #69,945
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,140
- PHOTO-FINISH illiquid
Nearest frequency peer: illiquid (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Long-tail ranks near “illusive”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Hutson
Hutson
30,060 corpus weight
- illiquid
illiquid
30,057 corpus weight
- illusive
illusive
30,056 corpus weight
- IMEI
IMEI
30,055 corpus weight
- impelled
impelled
30,054 corpus weight
- indistinctly
indistinctly
30,052 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “illusive” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | illusive |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ɪˈluːsɪv/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #69,945 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “illusive” in English
Rare enough to double-check
illusive is uncommon English at frequency #69,945 among 2,140 “I” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed /ɪˈluːsɪv/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Subject to or pertaining to an illusion, often used in the sense of an unrealistic expectation or an unreachable goal or outcome.".
No generated misspelling entries exist for illusive in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. Our dataset records no confusable match here, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from Medieval Latin illūsīvus. The correct English form is illusive, spelled I-L-L-U-S-I-V-E.
Definition
- 1Subject to or pertaining to an illusion, often used in the sense of an unrealistic expectation or an unreachable goal or outcome.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how illusive appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Testing software completely is an illusive goal.
[…] he could not catch the illusive thing that had sadly perplexed as well as elevated his spirit.
Etymology
Borrowed from Medieval Latin illūsīvus.
Synonyms
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "illusive", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).