illusory
/ɪˈluːs(ə)ri
/adjective
Based on illusion; not real: she knew the safety of her room was illusory...
- 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.
Synonyms
delusory, delusional, delusive;
illusionary, imagined, imaginary, fancied, non-existent, unreal, hallucinatory;
sham, hollow, deceptive, deceiving, false, fallacious, fake, bogus, mistaken, erroneous, misleading, misguided, untrue, specious, fanciful, notional, chimerical
rare illusive, Barmecide
Derivatives
illusorily
- Welfare lines and teenage moms by the hundred thousand emerged as a direct result of the apparently but illusorily attractive State incentive not to work.
- In other words, it is reasonable to conclude that correct performance on invalid target-present trials was not based on coincidental hits of illusorily created targets but was mostly based on correct target identification.
- Much of it is a blur, as though the intensity of the experience - of starting my first company - has acted like a plane on my memories and feelings, smoothing them down to an illusorily even surface.
illusoriness
/ noun ...- Such promptings and the resulting grave thoughts deprive ‘home country’ of all meaning, a fact reflective of its illusoriness as a concept.
- He always defended human culture, even as he acknowledged its transience and illusoriness.
- By analyzing the structure of signification, Lacan demonstrates the illusoriness of such a ‘phantasm.’