DELUSIVE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does delusive mean? 

• DELUSIVE (adjective)
  The adjective DELUSIVE has 1 sense:

1. inappropriate to reality or facts

  Familiarity information: DELUSIVE used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DELUSIVE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Inappropriate to reality or facts

Synonyms:

delusive; false

Context example:

false hopes

Similar:

unrealistic (not realistic)

Derivation:

delude (be false to; be dishonest with)

 Context examples 

The pigeon-pie was not bad, but it was a delusive pie: the crust being like a disappointing head, phrenologically speaking: full of lumps and bumps, with nothing particular underneath.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The fresh winds blew away desponding doubts, delusive fancies, and moody mists.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Whether is it better, I ask, to be a slave in a fool's paradise at Marseilles—fevered with delusive bliss one hour—suffocating with the bitterest tears of remorse and shame the next—or to be a village-schoolmistress, free and honest, in a breezy mountain nook in the healthy heart of England?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

That my papa was too partial, I know; still, on such a point as the frigid coldness which has ever subsisted between Mr. Micawber and my family, I necessarily have formed an opinion, delusive though it may be.”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)