illegals
- 1Plural of illegal.
The agency exposed a ring of illegals working under forged identities.
Officials estimated that thousands of illegals were employed across the region's farms.
Note
The plural gathers several quite different nouns, so context does the sorting. In intelligence writing, illegals are spies abroad under non-official cover, with no visible tie to their government. Said of people without immigration status, the word is colloquial and offensive, best avoided. Loosely, illegals can also mean contraband, especially drugs, a use that lives mostly in the plural.
illegals is a form of illegal
illegal, noun: A person residing in a country without legal authorization; a label many regard as offensive and dehumanizing. Full entry
- Forms
- illegalillegals plural
- Spelling
- illegal → illegals: add -s
- Sound
- The ending sounds like /z/.
Use it in a sentence
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