illusion
part of speech
noun (an illusion, illusions)
meaning for a pupil
1) Something that seems real or true but is not: a trick of the eyes or the mind. tree →
2) An optical illusion: a picture that tricks your eyes, like lines that look different lengths but are the same. tree →
3) A false idea or belief: «He was under the illusion that school was cancelled». tree →
4) A magic trick on a stage. tree →
sense in the lessons
In science: optical illusions show that the brain guesses what we see, and it can be fooled; a mirage in the desert is a real illusion of water. In lessons about tricks and fake news: things can look true but be illusions, so check. Phrases: «optical illusion», «under the illusion that», «the illusion of», «magic illusion».
examples
- The two lines look different, but it's an optical illusion — they're the same length. tree →
- The magician's illusion made the rabbit vanish. tree →
- A mirage is an illusion of water in the hot desert. tree →
- He was under the illusion that he would win easily. tree →
- The mirror gives the illusion of a bigger room. tree →
- Measure the lines with a ruler to beat the illusion. tree →
note
«An illusion» (it starts with a vowel sound). Do not confuse with «allusion» (a hint or mention of something) or «delusion» (a strong false belief, often a sign of illness). Countable.
In the corpora
- Stage illusions like «sawing a person in half» use special boxes, mirrors and hidden helpers; nobody is hurt.
- In the Müller-Lyer illusion, two equal lines look different lengths because of the arrow ends; a ruler shows the truth.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «illusion» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.