Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To free or deprive of illusion.
  • noun The act of disenchanting.
  • noun The condition or fact of being disenchanted.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A freeing or becoming free from illusion; the state of being disillusioned or disenchanted; disenchantment.
  • To free from illusion; disenchant.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To free from an illusion; to disillusionize.
  • noun The act or process of freeing from an illusion, or the state of being freed therefrom.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb transitive To free or deprive of illusion; to disenchant.
  • noun countable The act or process of disenchanting or freeing from a false belief.
  • noun uncountable The state of having been or process of becoming freed of false belief.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun freeing from false belief or illusions
  • verb free from enchantment

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

dis- +‎ illusion

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Examples

  • Mr. Barber 's 1935 recording with the Curtis String Quartet of "Dover Beach," his own setting of Matthew Arnold' s classic poem of Victorian disillusion, is a technically polished, sensitively interpreted performance that has never been bettered.

    Unforgettable in More Than One Way Terry Teachout 2010

  • So renewal, not disillusion, is the agenda before us.

    Ontario's Role in Confederation 1979

  • L. E.L.'s poetry invokes illusions as its materials; disillusion is then its plot: 10 "day by day/Some new illusion is destroyed, and life/Gets cold and colder on towards its close" (ll.

    Life of Letitia Landon 2000

  • We call our disillusion with democracy "politics" and let it go at that.

    A Sense of Urgency 2006

  • Those who live by wishful thinking perish in disillusion.

    The Uncertain Future 1946

  • As time passes, and the hour of the train draws near, he begins to reflect vaguely on his project; he recalls the disillusion of the visit he had once paid to Holland.

    Figures of Several Centuries Arthur Symons 1905

  • For most of Labour's Mondeo movers, their disillusion has been a considered, long-term process.

    Telegraph.co.uk: news, business, sport, the Daily Telegraph newspaper, Sunday Telegraph 2010

  • Maybe some people disseminate a kind of disillusion just to further just to attract some votes.

    Democratic Doubts Surround Bahrain Elections 2010

  • Maybe some people disseminate a kind of disillusion just to further just to attract some votes.

    Democratic Doubts Surround Bahrain Elections 2010

  • In the Chirton area of Tynemouth, scene of violent riots in 1991 during the prior Conservative government, 77-year-old former shipworker Thomas Grounsell said he would give the Labour government a five-out-of-10 rating for its record since 1997, the kind of disillusion that some political observers believe will persuade traditional Labour voters to stay home Thursday.

    Swing Seats Hold Key to U.K. Election 2010

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