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make believe
verb
- to pretend or enact a fantasy
the children made believe they were doctors
noun
- a fantasy, pretence, or unreality
- ( as modifier )
a make-believe world
- a person who pretends
Word History and Origins
Origin of make-believe1
Idioms and Phrases
Pretend, as in Let's make believe we're elves . This expression in effect means making oneself believe in an illusion. [Early 1700s]Example Sentences
Donetsk, formerly a make-believe republic, is turning into a little neo-Soviet state.
Her current obsession is Harry Potter, so the guest of honor at her birthday party will be a make believe Hermione Granger.
We were at the CIA recently, and I broached this question because it was front and center in our make-believe intelligence agency.
Was this a conspiracy as charged in the indictment, or just some make-believe as the defense contends?
As head of a state—even such a make-believe state as the Vatican—Joseph Ratzinger has absolute immunity from legal action.
Never mind the dust; I've turned it on to make believe we're going tremendously fast.
He left about a hundred of us here to make believe we 'uns ware goin' to attack Paris, so to give him time to git away.
They would pick them up and hold them in their hands and would then make believe they were Cave-men trapping reindeer in the snow.
Then the larger reindeer that had lost their antlers started off to make-believe higher lands.
Already poor Richard was very humble, his make-believe spirit all snuffed out.
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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