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  1. illeism love

Definitions

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. The unnecessarily frequent use of the pronoun he by a writer, especially in reference to himself in the third person; also, an instance of this use.

Wiktionary

  1. n. The practice of referring to oneself in the third person.

Etymologies

  1. From Latin ille ("that man; he") + -ism (modelled on egoism). (Wiktionary)

Examples

  • “It is effectively the Baseball Hall of Fame's pause before the steroid storm really hits, so let's all sit back and chuckle at Rickey Henderson's illeism and malapropisms and magnificent sense of self.”

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Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. illeist

tags (4)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. language
  1. linguistics
  1. -ism
  1. vccvvcc

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Lists

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Comments

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  • plethora See also jmjarmstrong. Feb 12, 2009

  • kostya reference to oneself by use of the third person. Feb 12, 2009

  • pterodactyl Here in the US, our two most famous illeists are probably Bob Dole and Elmo. I think that they're a perfect match, and I'd love to see them do a comedy film together. You could call it "Elmo loves you, Bob Dole!"

    Or "Bob Dole loves you, Elmo!" Apr 6, 2008

  • bilby One is pleased that illeism has been added to one's list. Apr 6, 2008

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‘illeism’ has been looked up 2293 times, loved by 8 people, added to 33 lists, commented on 4 times, and is not a valid Scrabble word.