adjective

• Based on illusion; not real.

  ‘she knew the safety of her room was illusory’

  More example sentences

  • ‘The prospect of getting their motion through was illusory rather than real.’
  • ‘Turn to the window at the other end of the upper floor and the view of real Oxford is again illusory.’
  • ‘Our ability to think in abstractions without using the physical world as a base tends to be illusory.’
  • ‘Progress towards equity is both real and illusory, things both have and have not progressed.’
  • ‘Each year the monastery's monks perform sacred chham dances that enact the illusory nature of life.’
  • ‘The arbitrariness of these figures is itself an indication of the illusory nature of the benefits.’
  • ‘The illusory nature of what we experience can be seen most clearly by examining the dream state.’
  • ‘The abolition of religion as people's illusory happiness is the demand for their real happiness.’
  • ‘On the negative side, it gives a false or illusory idea of oneself as indispensable in the eyes of other people.’
  • ‘It would be absurd to say that holes in socks are unreal and illusory just because the hole isn't made of anything and is purely an absence.’
  • ‘They don't want to deceive each other with illusory promises of undying love.’
  • ‘Instead, he is a man with a nonexistent economic policy and an illusory budget plan.’
  • ‘One of the leading themes of current philosophy is that the notion of objectivity is utterly illusory.’
  • ‘The purpose of the Vedas is to cut down the illusory tree of the material world and attain the real tree of the spiritual world.’
  • ‘While the data supporting mobile phone risk is illusory, our commitment to risk is quite real.’
  • ‘Still less do we need to try and settle that rivalry by calling one of them real and the others more or less illusory.’
  • ‘But it's an illusory solution because it has little to do with wealth creation.’
  • ‘But it's an illusory prize and not worth the sacrifice of lives and principles.’
  • ‘By humiliating others, a person gains an illusory sense of worth and importance.’
  • ‘Secularism does not end up healing wounds; it only applies an illusory balm.’

  Synonyms

  delusory, delusional, delusive

  View synonyms