Adjacent Words

make-believe definitions

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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: imagined as in a play; "the make-believe world of theater"; "play money"; "dangling their legs in the water to catch pretend fish" [syn: make-believe, pretend] n
1: imaginative intellectual play [syn: pretense, pretence, make-believe]
2: the enactment of a pretense; "it was just pretend" [syn: make-believe, pretend]

Merriam Webster's

I. noun also make-belief Date: 1811 a pretending that what is not real is real <a fiction writer's childish willingness to immerse himself in make-believe — John Updike> II. adjective Date: 1824 imaginary, pretended

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Make-believe Make"-be*lieve`, a. Feigned; insincere. ``Make-believe reverence.''

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Make-believe Make"-be*lieve`, n. A feigning to believe, as in the play of children; a mere pretense; a fiction; an invention. ``Childlike make-believe.'' --Tylor. To forswear self-delusion and make-believe. --M. Arnold.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

1. If someone is living in a make-believe world, they are pretending that things are better, different, or more exciting than they really are instead of facing up to reality. ...the glamorous make-believe world of show business... [disapproval] 2. You use make-believe to refer to the activity involved when a child plays a game in which they pretend something, for example that they are someone else. She used to play games of make-believe with her elder sister. ...his make-believe playmate. 3. You use make-believe to describe things, for example in a play or film, that imitate or copy something real, but which are not what they appear to be. The violence in those films was too unreal, it was make-believe... ADJ

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

I. n. Sham, feint, pretence, pretext, counterfeit. II. a. Unreal, sham, pretended, counterfeited, mock, clap-trap.