Illusion \Il*lu"sion\, n. [F. illusion, L. illusio, fr.
illudere, illusum, to illude. See Illude.]
1. An unreal image presented to the bodily or mental vision;
a deceptive appearance; a false show; mockery;
hallucination.
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To cheat the eye with blear illusions. --Milton.
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2. Hence: Anything agreeably fascinating and charming;
enchantment; witchery; glamour.
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Ye soft illusions, dear deceits, arise! --Pope.
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3. (Physiol.) A sensation originated by some external object,
but so modified as in any way to lead to an erroneous
perception; as when the rolling of a wagon is mistaken for
thunder.
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Note: Some modern writers distinguish between an illusion and
hallucination, regarding the former as originating with
some external object, and the latter as having no
objective occasion whatever.
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4. A plain, delicate lace, usually of silk, used for veils,
scarfs, dresses, etc.
Syn: Delusion; mockery; deception; chimera; fallacy. See
Delusion. Illusion, Delusion. Illusion refers
particularly to errors of the sense; delusion to false
hopes or deceptions of the mind. An optical deception is
an illusion; a false opinion is a delusion. --E.
Edwards.
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The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
illusion
n 1: an erroneous mental representation [syn: semblance]
2: something many people believe that is false; "they have the
illusion that I am very wealthy" [syn: fantasy, phantasy,
fancy]
3: the act of deluding; deception by creating illusory ideas
[syn: delusion, head game]
4: an illusory feat; considered magical by naive observers
[syn: magic trick, conjuring trick, trick, magic,
legerdemain, conjuration, deception]
WordNet (r) 2.0
138 Moby Thesaurus words for "illusion":
aberrancy, aberration, air, airy nothing, apparition, appearance,
bamboozlement, bedevilment, befooling, bewitchery, bewitchment,
bluffing, brainchild, bubble, calculated deception, captivation,
chimera, circumvention, conning, deceiving, deception,
deceptiveness, defectiveness, defrauding, delirium, delusion,
delusiveness, deviancy, distortion, dream, dupery, eidolon,
enchantment, enmeshment, ensnarement, entanglement, entrancement,
entrapment, errancy, erroneousness, error, ether, fallaciousness,
fallacy, falseness, falsity, fancy, fantasque, fantasy,
fascination, fault, faultiness, fiction, figment, flaw, flawedness,
flimflam, flimflammery, fond illusion, fooling, hallucination,
hamartia, heresy, heterodoxy, hoodwinking, idle fancy,
ignis fatuus, imagery, imagination, imagining, insubstantial image,
invention, kidding, maggot, make-believe, maya, mirage,
misapplication, misapprehension, misconception, misconstruction,
misdoing, misfeasance, misinterpretation, misjudgment, mist,
mistake, myth, obsession, outwitting, overreaching, peccancy,
perversion, phantasm, phantasmagoria, phantom, pipe, pipe dream,
possession, putting on, rainbow, romance, seeming,
self-contradiction, self-deception, semblance, shadow, sick fancy,
sin, sinfulness, smoke, snow job, song and dance, spirit, spoofery,
spoofing, subterfuge, swindling, thick-coming fancies, thin air,
trickiness, tricking, trip, unorthodoxy, untrueness, untruth,
untruthfulness, vapor, victimization, vision, whim, whimsy,
wildest dreams, willful misconception, wishful thinking, witchery,
wrong, wrongness
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
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