smoke and mirrors
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of smoke and mirrors
First recorded in 1980–85
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
He accused a minority of peers of deliberate time-wasting, and urged them to "stop all this smoke and mirrors and focus on making the bill better".
From BBC • Feb. 26, 2026
Gabriel could have come across as a mere cipher in this environment, a faceless spook navigating smoke and mirrors.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 12, 2025
"Neuralink is currently just smoke and mirrors, with a lot of hype," Herve Chneiweiss, a neurologist and expert in ethics at France's research organisation INSERM, told AFP.
From Barron's • Nov. 12, 2025
The pay package is replete with smoke and mirrors, its benchmarks painstakingly tweaked to make them much more achievable than they appear on the surface.
From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 16, 2025
But maybe being able to say “I love you” was just smoke and mirrors compared to having a living being under your fingers.
From "Endangered" by Eliot Schrefer
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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.