illocute

illocute verb: to perform an illocutionary act.

Verb

illocute (third-person singular simple present illocutes, present participle illocuting, simple past and past participle illocuted)

To perform an illocutionary act.
- In some such cases, at least, there will be illocutions q such that S can illocute q and thereby (among other things) convey to A that p.1981, Peter Cole, Radical pragmatics, New York: Academic Press, →OCLC, page 93
- Typically, one can illocute in order to perlocute, but not conversely.2012, J.F. Rosenberg, Linguistic Representation, Springer Netherlands, →ISBN, page 11

So, we must not conflate consent with nonrefusal: a failure to illocute refusal does not entail that one has illocuted consent to sex instead.2019, Mari Mikkola, Pornography: A Philosophical Introduction, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 66:
[…] [S]ome of these refinements also help us make progress on the question whether machines can illocute.2022 January 27, Mitchell Green, Jan G. Michel, “What Might Machines Mean?”, in Minds and Machines, volume 32, pages 323–338:

third-person singular present	illocutes
present participle	illocuting
past participle	illocuted
past	illocuted

Back-formation from illocution.

What does illocute mean?: Illocute means to perform an illocutionary act.
How do you use illocute in a sentence?: So, we must not conflate consent with nonrefusal: a failure to illocute refusal does not entail that one has illocuted consent to sex instead.
What part of speech is illocute?: Illocute is a verb.
What is the past tense of illocute?: The past tense of illocute is illocuted.

Adapted from Wiktionary: illocute (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: 2026-09-02

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