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Glite Dictionary
🚫 Not allowed 🧑‍🦯 A migrant (offensive)
illegal

illegal

77 9.9
An offensive word for a person living in a country without legal permission
  • noun
  • /ɪˈliːɡəl/
  • Slur
translation icon : ilegal (ofensivo)
  • So as you know, we've had a huge surge of illegal migrants.
  • many illegals

Examples

  • For Bonilla, the fate of "illegals" could never be separated from that of legal Latinos/Chicanos.

    Academic text (2001)

  • All Americans are hurt by uncontrolled illegal migration.

  • For me, your basic illegal was more than just a name and a face.

    Fiction book (1997)

  • The next time this illegal tries to enter the country...

    Coneheads (1993)

  • Let me just go through the ways that individual illegal migrants try and stay.

  • Not to mention housing illegal migrants every single day.

  • Yet since that time we have faced wave after wave of illegal migration.

  • What we are proposing here will, I think, flush illegal migrants out.

  • You have to look at what the illegals contribute.

    Fiction book (1997)

  • The police found several illegals living in unsafe conditions in the abandoned warehouse.

Compounds

illegal possession
  • NSFW
4 5.3

Having banned things like drugs or guns when the law does not allow it

illegal smuggling
  • NSFW
1 3.8

Taking goods or people across a border in secret and against the law

How Criminal

felonious
  • Specialized
9 8.5
criminal
∞ 2.8
illegal
  • Slur
77 9.9
law-abiding
63 3.4

Surface Forms

illegal singular
illegals plural

Morphology

illegal = illegal (semi-transparent) = il + legal

The noun is formed by conversion from the adjective 'illegal', but the specific offensive slang sense for a person is only partly predictable from the adjective alone.

Etymology

Illegal used as a noun (often illegals) comes from the same parts: in- 'not' + legal 'allowed by law'. Calling people 'illegals' turns their whole identity into a legal label, so many find it offensive and prefer words like 'undocumented' or 'migrant'.