MAKE BELIEVE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does make believe mean? 

• MAKE BELIEVE (verb)
  The verb MAKE BELIEVE has 1 sense:

1. represent fictitiously, as in a play, or pretend to be or act like

  Familiarity information: MAKE BELIEVE used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MAKE BELIEVE (verb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Represent fictitiously, as in a play, or pretend to be or act like

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Synonyms:

make; make believe; pretend

Context example:

She makes like an actress

Hypernyms (to "make believe" is one way to...):

act; play; represent (play a role or part)

Verb group:

affect; dissemble; feign; pretend; sham (make believe with the intent to deceive)

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

go through the motions (pretend to do something by acting as if one was really doing it)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s that CLAUSE

Derivation:

make-believe (the enactment of a pretense)

 Context examples 

You make believe that you believe in the survival of the strong and the rule of the strong.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

And when there was no meat to give, Mit-sah would keep the team at a distance and make believe to give meat to Lip-lip.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

“Put this and that together, my tender pupil,” returned the wary Mowcher, touching her nose, “work it by the rule of Secrets in all trades, and the product will give you the desired result. I say I do a little in that way myself. One Dowager, SHE calls it lip-salve. Another, SHE calls it gloves. Another, SHE calls it tucker-edging. Another, SHE calls it a fan. I call it whatever THEY call it. I supply it for 'em, but we keep up the trick so, to one another, and make believe with such a face, that they'd as soon think of laying it on, before a whole drawing-room, as before me. And when I wait upon 'em, they'll say to me sometimes—WITH IT ON—thick, and no mistake—“How am I looking, Mowcher? Am I pale?”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

If I don't like a thing, I don't like it, that's all; and there is no reason under the sun why I should ape a liking for it just because the majority of my fellow-creatures like it, or make believe they like it.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

There were cowardly suggestions that he should make believe, assume a part; and there were still more cowardly suggestions that warned him he would fail in such course, that his nature was not fitted to live up to it, and that he would make a fool of himself.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)