DELUDE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does delude mean? 

• DELUDE (verb)
  The verb DELUDE has 1 sense:

1. be false to; be dishonest with

  Familiarity information: DELUDE used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DELUDE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they delude    ... he / she / it deludes   
Past simple: deluded   
Past participle: deluded   
-ing form: deluding   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Be false to; be dishonest with

Classified under:

Verbs of political and social activities and events

Synonyms:

cozen; deceive; delude; lead on

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)

 Context examples 

After this, Mrs. Crupp confined herself to making pitfalls on the stairs, principally with pitchers, and endeavouring to delude Peggotty into breaking her legs.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

In his despondency, he concluded that he had no judgment whatever, that he was hypnotized by what he wrote, and that he was a self-deluded pretender.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

So determined was their denial that the inspector was staggered, and had almost come to believe that Mrs. St. Clair had been deluded when, with a cry, she sprang at a small deal box which lay upon the table and tore the lid from it.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

"I will make the world acknowledge you a beauty, too," he went on, while I really became uneasy at the strain he had adopted, because I felt he was either deluding himself or trying to delude me.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Now a bag of remarkable clothespins, next, a wonderful nutmeg grater which fell to pieces at the first trial, a knife cleaner that spoiled all the knives, or a sweeper that picked the nap neatly off the carpet and left the dirt, labor-saving soap that took the skin off one's hands, infallible cements which stuck firmly to nothing but the fingers of the deluded buyer, and every kind of tinware, from a toy savings bank for odd pennies, to a wonderful boiler which would wash articles in its own steam with every prospect of exploding in the process.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

“You are always plotting, and delude yourself into the belief that everybody else is doing the like, I think,” said I.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

That Mr. W. has been for years deluded and plundered, in every conceivable manner, to the pecuniary aggrandisement of the avaricious, false, and grasping—HEEP.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I could not help thinking, as we approached the gate, what an uproar would have been made in the country, if any deluded man had proposed to spend one half the money it had cost, on the erection of an industrial school for the young, or a house of refuge for the deserving old.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I found that my services were constantly called into requisition for the falsification of business, and the mystification of an individual whom I will designate as Mr. W. That Mr. W. was imposed upon, kept in ignorance, and deluded, in every possible way; yet, that all this while, the ruffian—HEEP—was professing unbounded gratitude to, and unbounded friendship for, that much-abused gentleman.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

But I must say, even to you, having known this injured family from childhood, that if you suppose the girl, so deeply wronged, has not been cruelly deluded, and would not rather die a hundred deaths than take a cup of water from your son's hand now, you cherish a terrible mistake.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)