Other forms: delusions
A delusion is a belief someone holds on to that is not true and that no amount of evidence will shift. The man certain his neighbours are recording him through the wall, the writer sure the publisher is about to ring.
In medicine the word is technical and carries no insult: delusions are a symptom of psychosis and of some dementias, and doctors separate them carefully from ordinary mistaken beliefs. In everyday speech it is aimed at someone else and it stings — he is under the delusion that he can sing. The set phrase is delusions of grandeur, meaning you think you are far more important than you are. Keep three lookalikes apart: a delusion is a false belief, an illusion is a false appearance like water on a hot road, and an allusion is an indirect mention of something. The verb is delude, and it points at yourself as readily as at anyone else — I was deluding myself.
1noundelusionA false belief held firmly in spite of the evidence.
“He clung to the delusion that the company would call him back.”
synonyms: fantasy
2nounmedicineIn medicine, a fixed false belief that is a symptom of mental illness.
“The patient was admitted with delusions and no sense of time.”
3nounactThe act of misleading someone, or of being misled.
“The whole scheme rested on the delusion of easy money.”
delusion is a false belief.
Delusion came into English from Latin dēlūsiō. English built the rest of the family around it — delude, deluded, deluding — so the noun now has a verb for the leading astray and an adjective for the person led. The word it gets confused with, illusion, is about appearances rather than beliefs.
Latin
dēlūsiō
English, today
delusion
From Latin dēlūsiō.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Man Called Ove, A Song of Ice and Fire
First appears in chapter 28 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word