Delusion definitions and example sentences on Wordnik

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Definitions (11)

American Heritage Dictionary (4)

noun The act or process of deluding.
noun The state of being deluded.
noun A false belief or opinion: labored under the delusion that success was at hand.

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Century Dictionary (3)

The act of deluding; a misleading of the mind; deception. For God hath justly given the nations up To thy delusions. Milton, P. R, i. 443. The major's good judgment—that is, if a man may be said to have good judgment who is under the influence of love's delusion. Thackeray, Vanity Fair.
The state of being deluded; false impression or belief; error or mistake, especially of a fixed nature: as, his delusion was unconquerable. See the synonyms below. God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie. 2 Thes. ii. 11. Some angry power cheats with rare delusions My credulous sense. Ford, Lover's Melancholy, iv. 3. I, waking, view'd with grief the rising sun, And fondly mourn'd the dear delusion gone. Prior. Of all the delusions against which history and historical geography have to strive, there is none more deeply rooted than the notion that there has always been a land called Switzerland and a people called the Swiss. E. A. Freeman, Amer. Lects., p. 383.
Synonyms Illusion, Delusion, Hallucination. As now technically used, especially by the best authorities in medical jurisprudence, illusion signifies a false mental appearance or conception produced by an external cause acting through the senses, the falsity of which is capable of detection by the subject of it by examination or reasoning. Thus, a mirage, or the momentary belief that a reflection in a mirror is a real object, is an illusion. A delusion is a fixed false mental conception, occasioned by an external object acting upon the senses, but not capable of correction or removal by examination or reasoning. Thus, a fixed belief that an inanimate object is a living person, that all one's friends are conspiring against one, that all food offered is poisoned, and the like, are delusions. A hallucination is a false conception occasioned by internal condition without external cause or aid of the senses, such as imagining that one hears an external voice when there is no sound to suggest such an idea. If a person walking at twilight, seeing a post, should believe it to be a spy pursuing him, and should imagine he saw it move, this would be an illusion; a continuous belief that every person one sees is a spy pursuing one, if such as cannot be removed by evidence, is a delusion; a belief that one sees such spies pursuing, when there is no object in sight capable of suggesting such a thought, is a hallucination. Illusions are not necessarily indications of insanity; delusions and hallucinations, if fixed, are. In literary and popular use an illusion is an unreal appearance presented in any way to the bodily or the mental vision; it is often pleasing, harmless, or even useful. The word delusion expresses strongly the mental condition of the person who puts too great faith in an illusion or any other error: he “labors under a delusion.” A delusion is a mental error or deception, and may have regard to things actually existing, as well as to illusions. Delusions are ordinarily repulsive and discreditable, and may even be mischievous. We speak of the illusiom of fancy, hope, youth, and the like, but of the delusions of a fanatic or a lunatic. A hallucination is the product of an imagination disordered, perhaps beyond the bounds of sanity; a flighty or crazy notion or belief, generally of some degree of permanence; a special aberration of belief as to some specific point: the central suggestion in the word is that of the groundlessness of the belief or opinion. Poetry produces an illusion on the eye of the mind, as a magic lantern produces an illusion on the eye of the body. Macaulay, Milton. Dreams or illusions, call them what you will, They lift us from the commonplace of life To better things. Longfellow, Michael Angelo. The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion. Burke, Speech at County Meeting in Bucks, 1784. Those other words of delusion and folly, Liberty first and Union after ward. D. Webster, Reply to Hayne. Mankind would be subject to fewer delusions than they are, if they constantly bore in mind their liability to false judgments due to unusual combinations, either artificial or natural, of true sensations. Huxley and Youmans, Physiol., § 292. A few hallucinations about a subject to which the greatest clerks have been generally such strangers may warrant us to dissent from his opinion. Boyle.

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Some Jews are so deeply enmeshed in a delusional world of murderous anti-Semitic non-Jews that rational interfaith discussion becomes impossible, and for such Jews anyone not sharing the delusion is an enemy. — Israel Palestine Blogs
This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. — DaddyBlogger.com
Your comment is typical of the delusion which is so self-evidently displayed by most posters. — DealBook
One way they deal with that is to go overboard fooling themselves until their want to believe becomes a delusion, that is, something real to them. — billingsgazette.com
Some idealists have infinite capacity for self-delusion, and idealists are badly needed in our world. — Articles

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delusion

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Definitions (11)

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