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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

illocution.

The aim of a speaker in making an utterance as opposed to the meaning of the terms used.

10 characters4 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˌɪləˈkjuːʃn/
  1. The aim of a speaker in making an utterance as opposed to the meaning of the terms used.

  2. A type of speech act being made by a speaker, i.e., the purpose of the statement in terms of how the addressee is to interpret either its truth-value, or its requirements and demands upon the speaker in terms of a physical or psychological response.

Where this word comes from

From il- (“in”) (an assimilated version of in-) + locution (“speech”), from Latin loquor.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.