illicitness

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Diversions visually suppressed shiftlessness or illicitness, or anything a bouncer had been instructed to keep out of a club.

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 12, 2023

But the city ignored Odum’s pleas to temporarily open the space for visitors, creating an aura of illicitness and immediacy around what he’d called “Project Be.”

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 21, 2020

But evoking illicitness is important to their identity—it gives them the frisson of speaking the forbidden, a rhetorical strategy that Daum also deploys.

From The New Yorker • Nov. 1, 2019

Our exchange reeked of geopolitical illicitness; we were mere kilometres from the Bridge of Spies, where, during the Cold War, prisoners were traded.

From The New Yorker • Jul. 8, 2016

Illegality -- N. lawlessness; illicitness; breach of law, violation of law, infraction of the law; disobedience &c.

From Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases by Roget, Peter Mark