Library / English Dictionary

DELUDE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Be false to; be dishonest with

Synonyms:

cozen; deceive; delude; lead on

Classified under:

Verbs of political and social activities and events

Hypernyms (to "delude" is one way to...):

victimise; victimize (make a victim of)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "delude"):

betray; sell (deliver to an enemy by treachery)

cheat; chisel (engage in deceitful behavior; practice trickery or fraud)

shill (act as a shill)

flim-flam; fob; fox; play a joke on; play a trick on; play tricks; pull a fast one on; trick (deceive somebody)

befool; fool; gull (make a fool or dupe of)

betray; cheat; cheat on; cuckold; wander (be sexually unfaithful to one's partner in marriage)

hoax; play a joke on; pull someone's leg (subject to a playful hoax or joke)

ensnare; entrap; frame; set up (take or catch as if in a snare or trap)

humbug (trick or deceive)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody

Derivation:

delusion (the act of deluding; deception by creating illusory ideas)

delusion (a mistaken or unfounded opinion or idea)

delusion ((psychology) an erroneous belief that is held in the face of evidence to the contrary)

delusive (inappropriate to reality or facts)

delusory (causing one to believe what is not true or fail to believe what is true)

Credits

 Context examples: 

Arrived at this house in Windsor Terrace (which I noticed was shabby like himself, but also, like himself, made all the show it could), he presented me to Mrs. Micawber, a thin and faded lady, not at all young, who was sitting in the parlour (the first floor was altogether unfurnished, and the blinds were kept down to delude the neighbours), with a baby at her breast.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Without attending to this invocation, we stood by, until he put up his pocket-handkerchief, pulled up his shirt-collar, and, to delude any person in the neighbourhood who might have been observing him, hummed a tune with his hat very much on one side.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

“And when you had made sure of the poor little fool,” said my aunt—“God forgive me that I should call her so, and she gone where YOU won't go in a hurry—because you had not done wrong enough to her and hers, you must begin to train her, must you? begin to break her, like a poor caged bird, and wear her deluded life away, in teaching her to sing YOUR notes?”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)