Illinois

¹ American  

[il-uh-noi, -noiz] / ˌɪl əˈnɔɪ, -ˈnɔɪz /

noun

1. a member of a confederacy of North American Indians of Algonquian stock, formerly occupying Illinois and adjoining regions westward.

2. the Algonquian language of the Illinois and Miami Indians.

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Illinois ² American  

[il-uh-noi, -noiz] / ˌɪl əˈnɔɪ, -ˈnɔɪz /

noun

1. a state in the central United States: a part of the Midwest. 56,400 sq. mi. (146,075 sq. km). Springfield. IL (for use with zip code), Ill.

2. a river flowing southwest from northeastern Illinois to the Mississippi River: connected by a canal with Lake Michigan. 273 miles (440 km) long.

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Illinois British  

/ ˌɪlɪˈnɔɪ /

noun

1. Abbreviation: Ill..   IL.  a state of the N central US, in the Midwest: consists of level prairie crossed by the Illinois and Kaskaskia Rivers; mainly agricultural. Capital: Springfield. Pop: 12 653 544 (2003 est). Area: 144 858 sq km (55 930 sq miles)

2. a river in Illinois, flowing SW to the Mississippi. Length: 439 km (273 miles)

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Illinois Cultural  

1. State in the north-central United States bordered on the north by Wisconsin, the east by Indiana, the south by Kentucky, and the west by Missouri and Iowa. Its capital is Springfield, and its largest city is Chicago.

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Pronunciation

The pronunciation of Illinois with a final , which occurs chiefly among less educated speakers, is least common in Illinois itself, increasing in frequency as distance from the state increases.

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Known as the “Land of Lincoln” because Abraham Lincoln began his political career there.

Other Word Forms

Inflected Forms

noun

• Illinois
  plural

Etymology

Origin of Illinois

1715–25, < French, earlier Eriniouai, Ilinoués, etc., from an unidentified Algonquian language, apparently literally, “one who sounds normal” (i.e., “a person who speaks an Algonquian language”), equivalent to the (unattested) Proto-Algonquian elements elen- “ordinary” + -we “make sound”

Example Sentences

Appeared in the June 6, 2026, print edition as 'The Illinois Bar vs.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 5, 2026

Data center proposals have been limited in California compared to Virginia, Texas, Georgia, Illinois and Arizona, which sit at the center of a recent boom in hyperscaler facilities to power artificial intelligence.

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 3, 2026

There was the time, just a few years later, when I re-loaded that same car to move from Illinois back to California, with a whole new girlfriend as my passenger.

From Salon • Jun. 1, 2026

The Illinois team developed a process that preserves the advantages of single-crystal silicon while staying well below the thermal limit.

From Science Daily • May 30, 2026

They camped for the night in a grove of tall white sycamores, right on the bank of the Illinois River.

From "Summer of the Monkeys" by Wilson Rawls