Word.ws English Dictionary

Ili

Ili proper noun: an automonous prefecture in Northern Xinjiang autonomous region, China.

Proper noun

Ili

  1. An automonous prefecture in Northern Xinjiang autonomous region, China.
    • Practically speaking, Yakoob Beg was safe from invasion from the east so long as he maintained order within his own frontier and the Tungani in Ili on his north had manifested no special hostility against his state.1878, Demetrius Charles Boulger, The Life of Yakoob Beg; Athalik Ghazi and Badaulet; Ameer of Kashgar, London: Wm. H. Allen & Co., page 126
    • Once the Russians had moved into Ili, it was not so easy for the Chinese to oust them from the region. A preliminary Sino-Russian treaty in 1879 gave Russia valuable parts of the region, an indemnity for occupation costs, and commercial privileges, but this treaty was denounced by the Peking...1963, A. Doak Barnett, China on the Eve of Communist Takeover, Frederick A. Praeger, page 244
    Synonyms:
    Yili, I-li
  2. A river situated in Xinjiang of north-western China and south-eastern Kazakhstan.
    • The Ili, rising inside Sinkiang, drains into Lake Balkhash in Soviet Kazakhstan, nearly a thousand miles to the west. Not far inside the USSR, to the south of the Ili on the Turkestan-Siberian Railway, sits Alma-Ata, the capital of the Kazakh SSR. Founded by the Russians a century ago, it contains...1962, W. A. Douglas Jackson, The Russo-Chinese Borderlands: Zone of Peaceful Contact or Potential Conflict?, D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc., page 9

Noun capitalized: ILI

ILI

  1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of influenza-like illness.

Examples of Ili in a sentence

  • Once the Russians had moved into Ili, it was not so easy for the Chinese to oust them from the region.1963, A. Doak Barnett, China on the Eve of Communist Takeover, Frederick A. Praeger, page 244:
  • He erected two sizeable monuments in Ili, with inscriptions in Chinese, Manchu, Oirat, and Tibetan, to commemorate his victory.1975, Morris Rossabi, China and Inner Asia: From 1368 to the Present Day, New York: Pica Press, page 148:
  • According to later reports, one of the main problems was that the Ili and Tacheng districts, which were entitled to fourteen and six representatives respectively, had sent eighteen and eight instead.1990, Linda Benson, The Ili Rebellion: The Moslem Challenge to Chinese Authority in Xinjiang, 1944-1949, M. E. Sharpe, page 121:
  • Vidal grape grown in Ili, Xinjiang Autonomous Region, is one of few grapes used to ferment ice wine in China.2020, Chen, Y. et al., “Microbial community composition and its role in volatile compound formation during the spontaneous fermentation of...

Synonyms of Ili

  • Yili
  • I-li

Origin of Ili

From Russian Или (Ili) and Uyghur ئىلى (ili), usually taken to derive from Mongolian.

Questions about Ili

What does Ili mean?
Ili means an automonous prefecture in Northern Xinjiang autonomous region, China.
How do you use Ili in a sentence?
Once the Russians had moved into Ili, it was not so easy for the Chinese to oust them from the region.
What part of speech is Ili?
Ili can be a proper noun or a noun.

Words near Ili in the dictionary

  1. ILGP
  2. Ilgs
  3. ILGWU
  4. Ilham
  5. ILHSM
  6. Ili
  7. Ili-
  8. ilia
  9. iliac
  10. iliac arteries
  11. iliac artery

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Ili (page history and authors); ILI (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “Ili.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ili. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.