Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- transitive verb To cause to hold a false belief; deceive thoroughly: synonym: deceive.
- transitive verb Obsolete To elude or evade.
- transitive verb Obsolete To frustrate the hopes or plans of.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To deceive; impose upon; mislead the mind or judgment of; beguile; cheat.
- To frustrate or disappoint; elude; evade.
- Synonyms Mislead, Delude (see
mislead ); to cozen, dupe, lead astray.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb To lead from truth or into error; to mislead the mind or judgment of; to beguile; to impose on; to dupe; to make a fool of.
- transitive verb To frustrate or disappoint.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb transitive To
deceive intobelieving something which isfalse ; to lead intoerror ; todupe . - verb transitive, obsolete To
frustrate ordisappoint .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb be false to; be dishonest with
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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African Union summit, Mugabe said opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai should not "delude" himself into thinking the result of the June 27 poll could be expunged from the record books and should renounce his claims to the presidency.
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And we should remember that Satan has his wonders, which, though they are juggling tricks rather than real miracles, are such as delude the ignorant and inexperienced.
Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations Edmund Spenser 1730
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You can decide, or delude, for yourself how many of those people want a copy of the album to use as the soundtrack for their family video. deanowaco says:
Matthew Yglesias » Intellectual Property is About Consumers 2010
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And yet you continue to delude yourself into thinking that the NIRA had something to do with the length of a global depression.
The Volokh Conspiracy » Crisis, the Health Care Bill, and the Growth of Government 2010
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You can decide, or delude, for yourself how many of those people want a copy of the album to use as the soundtrack for their family video.
Matthew Yglesias » Intellectual Property is About Consumers 2010
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Cupidity and our ability to delude ourselves are constant.
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And yet you continue to delude yourself into thinking that the NIRA had something to do with the length of a global depression.
The Volokh Conspiracy » Crisis, the Health Care Bill, and the Growth of Government 2010
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I prefer to interpret it (read: delude myself) as showing love for the comics of an earlier age.
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“Don't delude yourself, Ellen,” he whispered to me once, as we stood in the doorway of her darkened room.
Diversion Meg Wolitzer 2011
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I would still argue that while discussions of such things as character or plot or point of view are perfectly useful ways of exploring our reactions to a work of fiction, we shouldn't delude ourselves into believing they're anything other than devices of convenience.
Style in Fiction 2009
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