Illusory

Definition: Illusory

Illusory

Adjective

1. Based on or having the nature of an illusion; "illusive hopes of of finding a better job"; "Secret activities offer presidents the alluring but often illusory promise that they can achieve foreign policy goals without the bothersome debate and open decision that are staples of democracy".

Date "illusory" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1615. (references)

Etymology: Illusory \Il*lu"so*ry\, adjective. [Compare to the French expression illusore.]. (Websters 1913)

Synonym: Illusory

Synonym: illusive (adj). (additional references)

Context	Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus).
Deception	Adjective: deceived; Verb: deceiving; cunning; prestigious, prestigiatory; deceptive, deceptious; deceitful, covinous; delusive, delusory; illusive, illusory; elusive, insidious, ad captandum vulgus.
Error	Illusive, illusory; delusive; mock, ideal; (imaginary); spurious; deceitful; perverted.
Imagination	Ideal, unreal; in the clouds, in nubibus; unsubsantial; illusory; (fallacious).
Reasoning,	Deceptive, sophistical, jesuitical; illusive, illusory; specious, hollow, plausible, ad captandum, evasive; irrelevant.
Unsubstantiality	Visionary; (imaginary); immaterial; spectral; dreamy; shadowy; ethereal, airy; cloud built, cloud formed; gossamery, illusory, insubstantial, unreal.
Untruth	Adjective: untrue, false, phony, trumped up; void of foundation, without-foundation; fictive, far from the truth, false as dicer's oaths; unfounded, ben trovato, invented, fabulous, fabricated, forged; fictitious, factitious, supposititious, surreptitious; elusory, illusory; ironical; soi-disant; (misnamed).
Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus.

Crosswords: Illusory

English words defined with "illusory": acousma, auditory hallucination ♦ Barmecidal, Barmecide, bubble ♦ conjuring trick, cortical epilepsy ♦ deception, delusion ♦ existent ♦ Flam, focal epilepsy, fool's paradise ♦ hallucination, head game ♦ illusion, illusive ♦ legerdemain ♦ magic, magic trick, mirage ♦ rainbow, real ♦ trick ♦ visual hallucination ♦ Zeno, Zeno of Elea. (references)

Specialty definitions using "illusory": Courtship, Crying ♦ illusory association, illusory correlation ♦ leans ♦ nonsense correlation. (references)

Non-English Usage: "Illusory" is also a word in the following language with the English translation in parentheses.

German (illusory).

Domain	Usage
Movie/TV Titles	Illusory Thoughts (1989)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Domain	Title
Books	Illusory Architecture and the Work of Richard Haas: A Selected Bibliography (reference) Illusory Consensus: Bolingbroke and the Polemical Response to Walpole, 1730-1737 (reference) Illusory Freedoms: Liberalism, Education and the Market (Journal of Philosophy of Education) (reference) Illusory Growth in Federal Grants in Aid to Cities (reference) Minorca the Illusory Prize: A History of the British Occupations of Minorca Between 1708 and 1802 (reference) (more book examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

"Illusory" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Illusory" is used about 208 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Adjective (general or positive)	100%	208	21,075

Expressions using "illusory": illusory association ♦ illusory correlation. Additional references.
Hypenated Usage
	Ending with "illusory": half-illusory, non-illusory.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Language		Translations for "illusory"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Albanian		iluzor (illusive), i gënjeshtërt (false, illusive, lying, mock, truthless, untrue), zhgënjyes (deceptive, disappointing, fallacious). (various references)

Arabic		‏موهم (illusive), ‏مخادع (artful, bluff, bluffer, crafty, deceitful, deceptive, delusive, devious, dishonest, disingenuous, double, double dealing, double-tongued, face, false, fraudulent, hustler, illusive, indirect, insincere, misguiding, misleading, sly, trickish, tricky, underhand, wily), ‏وهم (bubble, delusion, fancy, idol, illusion, imagination, phantom, prestige, purport, vagary, vapor, vapour), ‏خادع (bluffy, crafty, deceitful, deceptive, delusive, delusory, dishonest, double dealing, fallacious, false, fool, illusive, insincere, misleading, rip off, trickish, tricky, wily), ‏خدع (bamboozle, beguile, betray, bilk, bitch, bite, blind, bluff, brown, bubble, camouflage, catch, cheat, chisel, con, crook, deceive, deception, decoy, defraud, delude, diddle, do, dupe, entrap, fall for, feint, fiddle, fob, fool, fox, get round, give the lie to, gull, gyp, hoax, hocus pocus, humbug, impose, intrigue, jape, job, leg pull, lure, mislead, mock, mystify, nick, overreach, pitch, play a trick, pose, prank, pull a fast one, pull his leg, ream, rook, sell, settle his hash, skin, skunk, slang, stick, string along, swank, swindle, take for a ride, take in, trick, victimize, wile), ‏بهر (bedazzle, blind, daze, dazzle, mesmerize, offend). (various references)

Bulgarian		измамлив (deceptive, delusive, delusory, fraudulent, guileful, unsound), илюзорен (delusive, delusory, illusional, illusive, insubstantial, phantom, unreal, visionary). (various references)

Chinese		幻觉 (hallucination, hallucinatory, illusion). (various references)

Czech		klamný (deceptive, delusory, fallacious, false, illusive, misleading, untrue). (various references)

Danish		illusorisk sammenhæng (illusory association). (various references)

Dutch		schijnverband (illusory association). (various references)

Farsi		مشتبه سازنده (Illusive), وهمی (Bizarre, Illusive, Imaginary, Uncanny, Unreal, Unrealistic), غیرواقعی (Illusive, Untrue). (various references)

Finnish		näennäisriippuvuus (illusory association), näennäiskorrelaatio (illusory correlation, nonsense correlation). (various references)

French		irréel (illusive), illusoire (illusive). (various references)

German		illusorisch (illusiv, illusive, illusively, illusorily), illusory. (various references)

Greek		απατηλόσ (catchy, colorable, deceitful, deceptive, delusive, elusive, elusory, fallacious, fraudulent, hollow, illusive, specious, tricky). (various references)

Hebrew		משל�" (allegory, delusive, delusory, fable, proverb), מטע�" (delusive, delusory, fallacious, misleading, specious), ל�"מחיש (demonstrate, embody, make perceptible, reify), ל�"�"�'ים (demonstrate, exemplify, illustrate, lead, represent), כוזב (false, fictitious, mimetic, untrue), �"מיו� י (airy fairy, fabulous, fairy, fancied, fanciful, fantasy, fictitious, imaginary, imaginative, phantom, romantic, unreal, utopian, visionary). (various references)

Hungarian		csalóka (delusive, delusory, elusive, fallacious, illusive, misleading, phantasmagoric, vain). (various references)

Italian		illusorio (delusive, false, illusive). (various references)

Norwegian		illusorisk (delusive, illusive). (various references)

Pig Latin		illusoryay.(various references)

Portuguese		ilusório (colorable, colourable, deceptive, delusive, elusory, illusive, misleading, mismanage, skin deep, specious, unreal), enganador (claptrap, crater, deceitful, deceiver, deceptive, delusive, false alarm, illustrate, lying down, misleading, scam artist, shuffler, skin deep, specious). (various references)

Romanian		iluzoriu (airy, apparent, deceitful, elusory, illusive, vain), nereal (illusive, unreal). (various references)

Russian		иллюзорный (delusive, delusory, illusive). (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		iluzoran (illusive, make believe), prividan (bogus, make believe, ostensible, sham, specious). (various references)

Spanish		ilusorio (delusive, delusory, elusive, illusive, phantom, unreal, unrealistic), de ilusión. (various references)

Swedish		illusorisk (delusive, delusory, illusive, phantasmal), overklig (fancied, illusive, insubstantial, phantasmal, unreal), bedräglig (cheated, colorable, colourable, deceitful, deceptive, delusive, delusory, elusive, fallacious, false, fraudulent, illusive, underhand). (various references)

Turkish		yanıltıcı (captious, colorable, elusory, fallacious, illusive, misleading, perversive, specious, token), hayali (aerial, airy, cardboard box, chimerical, delusive, Faerie, faery, fanciful, fantastic, fantastical, fictional, fictitious, fictive, illusive, imaginary, imaginative, insubstantial, phantasmal, spectral, unreal, visionary), aldatıcı (baffling, beguiling, catchy, colorable, colored, coloured, deceptive, delusive, devious, dishonest, double dealing, elusory, fake, fallacious, googly, hype, illusive, indirect, specious, treacherous, trickish, tricksy, tricky). (various references)

Ukranian		ілюзорний (delusive, delusory, elusory, illusive, phantasmal), примарний (apparitional, dreamlike, dreamy, elfish, elvish, ghastly, ghostly, illusive, phantasmal, spectral, spooky, visional). (various references)

Vietnamese		viển vông (air, illusive), không thực tế (dreamy, impractical, romantic, theoretic, theoretical, unpractical, unreal), hão huyền (chimerical, phanstasmal, phantasmic, romantic, visionary). (various references)

Welsh		lledrithiol (illusive). (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

Misspellings
	"Illusory" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: illsory, illusary, illusiory, illustris, liguory, ligustri, Liliboy. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

# of Phoneme Matches	Pronunciation	Word(s) rhyming with "illusory" (pronounced i'luw"serē)
3	-s er ē	accessory, anniversary, Brasserie, Chancery, compulsory, cursory, dispensary, extrasensory, glossary, grocery, nursery, rotisserie, sensory, sorcery.
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits.

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "i-l-l-o-r-s-u-y"
	-1 letter: lousily, surlily.
	-2 letters: rosily, sourly.
	-3 letters: loris, louis, lours, loury, lousy, rills, roils, roily, rolls, silly, slily, sully, surly, yills, yours.
	-4 letters: ills, illy, lily, lory, lour, oils, oily, ours, rill, roil, roll, rosy, ruly, sill, silo, slur, soil, soli, sori, soul, sour, syli, yill, your.
	-5 letters: ill, lis, oil, ors, our, sir, sly, sol, sou, soy, sri, you.
	Words containing the letters "i-l-l-o-r-s-u-y"
	+2 letters: collyriums, gloriously, illusorily, perilously.
	+3 letters: deliriously, desultorily, frivolously, hilariously, illusionary, laboriously, ludicrously, luxuriously, religiously, unsoldierly.
	+4 letters: chivalrously, compulsorily, idolatrously, ingloriously, irresolutely, lubriciously, lugubriously, miraculously, rebelliously, ridiculously, salubriously, scurrilously, stridulously, worshipfully.
	+5 letters: burglariously, deleteriously, flirtatiously, flourishingly, illustriously, incredulously, irreligiously, microphyllous, superloyalist, touristically, ultraroyalist.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.