adjective
Usage
Illusive is sometimes wrongly used where elusive is meant: they fought hard, but victory remained elusive (not illusive )
Other Word Forms
- illusorily adverb
- illusoriness noun
- unillusory adjective
Etymology
Origin of illusory
1590–1600; < Late Latin illūsōrius, equivalent to illūd ( ere ) to mock, ridicule ( illusion ) + -tōrius -tory 1
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.
And even that 600,000 gain last year could prove illusory once the government updates the data to be more accurate.
From MarketWatch • Jan. 30, 2026
We eagerly drink in the discord because the stakes are illusory, even if the high-strung emotions turn out to be real.
From Salon • Jan. 28, 2026
Toner-Rodgers’s illusory success seems in part thanks to the dynamics he has now upset: an academic culture at MIT where high levels of trust, integrity and rigor are all—for better or worse—assumed.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 22, 2025
And yet they still experienced the illusory effects of the figure.
From Slate • Aug. 24, 2025
It was not that Lowell’s eye had strung up disconnected fine detail on the Martian surface into illusory straight lines.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
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.
