illusion
A distortion of sensory perception where real stimuli lead to a false or misleading impression of reality.
Example
“We saw what looked like a tiger among the trees, but it was an illusion caused by the shadows of the branches.”
Other meanings
A misapprehension; a belief in something that is in fact not true.
“Jane has this illusion that John is in love with her.”
A magician’s trick.
Related words
- disillusion
- illusionable
- illusional
- illusionary
- illusioned
- illusionette
- illusionism
- illusionistic
- illusionless
- illusionlike
- Jastrow illusion
- Pac-Man illusion
Example sentences
Word history
From Latin "illūsiō".
Where this comes from
This definition is adapted from “illusion” on Wiktionary, by its contributors; example sentences are from Tatoeba, credited to their authors above, published under CC BY-SA 4.0. This page is published under the same licence.