make-believe
/ˈmeɪkbɪliːv
/noun [mass noun]
The action of pretending or imagining that things are better than they really are: she’s living in a world of make-believe...
- There's no fairy-tale involved like Midsummer Night's Dream where there's make-believe.
- Of course all photography is illusion, all cinema make-believe.
- I could play make-believe, pretend away all the pain.
Synonyms
fantasy, pretence, pretending, daydreaming, dreaming, imagination, invention, fancy, dream, unreality, romancing, fabrication, play-acting, charade, masquerade, self-deception, illusion, delusion
adjective
Imitating something real: he was firing a make-believe gun at the spy planes...
- Are they all totally imaginary, inspired by real people, or just an amalgam of the make-believe world and the real one?
- She threw my make-believe corpse into a real open grave while I haunted.
- He faced a little bush and lifted his make-believe gun.
Synonyms
imaginary, imagined, pretended, made-up, fantasy, fantasized, fancied, dream, dreamed-up, unreal, fanciful, fictitious, fictive, mythical, feigned, fake, mock, sham, simulated, pseudo, false, spurious
informal pretend, phoney
South African play-play
verb [no object]
Pretend; imagine: you can make-believe you’re swimming out in the crystal clear waters of the Mediterranean...
- I was knocking them together gently, make-believing that they were real entities, locked in fisticuffs, a classic battle of good versus evil.
- The dark-haired child gave way to her sister's commands, slinking to the base of the stone pedestal that would be make-believed into a high and impenetrable lair.
- Children know how to imagine and make-believe, and how to play.
Synonyms
pretend, fantasize, indulge in fantasy, daydream, build castles in the air, build castles in Spain, dream, imagine, romance, fancy, play-act, play
- valorous
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- valse
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