Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use illusory in a sentence

15 example sentences · adjective

Illusory means resulting from an illusion; deceptive, imaginary, unreal. Example: “The illusory cognition of silver knows illusory silver, but does not know its otherwiseness.”

Examples of illusory by meaning

adjectiveResulting from an illusion; deceptive, imaginary, unreal.

  • The illusory cognition of silver knows illusory silver, but does not know its otherwiseness.1973, Jadunath Sinha, A History of Indian Philosophy, volume 4, page 174
  • Yet for this new womanosphere, the response is not advancing policies like paid family leave or affordable childcare, but to return to an idealized, illusory past where being a wife and mother was viewed as a woman’s sole purpose.2025 April 24, Anna Silman, “Now comes the ‘womanosphere’: the anti-feminist media telling women to be thin, fertile and Republican”, in...

More sentences with illusory

  • If this last, embracing the alien, seems an advance on previous xenophobias, it is largely illusory.1994, Damien Broderick, Reading by Starlight, page 114. From the entry xenophobias
  • However, investigations by electron microscope proved that the non-occurring of crystallization was illusory.1970, NHQ; the New Hungarian Quarterly, page 161. From the entry non-occurring
  • This is fine, of course, but somewhat vague, illusory and politicianese.1931 June 1, The Daily Messenger, Madisonville, Ky., page four. From the entry politicianese
  • His failure to incorporate earth within the cycle of intermutation leads him to suggest that its transformation is purely illusory.2013, James Longrigg, Greek Rational Medicine, page 126. From the entry intermutation
  • The Marriage of Time and 'I' This concept of time is closely tied up with our illusory sense of 'I-ness'.2010, Alistair Conwell, The Audible Life Stream. From the entry I-ness
  • It becomes an illusory dream that always evades the fearer while holding him or her tightly in its tyranny.2009, Poul F. Guttesen, Leaning Into the Future: The Kingdom of God in the Theology of Jürgen Moltmann and in the Book of Revelation…. From the entry fearer
  • The illusory nature of urban area reduces the stability of the consciousness of a town dweller, promotes his estrangement from the real environment of existence.2019, Elena G. Popkova, Growth Poles of the Global Economy: Emergence, Changes and Future Perspectives, page 652. From the entry town dweller
  • How about getting back to the U.S. of America, the "us," and stop the illusory rhetoric that divides us like who is more patriotic?2011 January 24, Laura Mola, “U.S. of America”, in HuffPost, archived from the original on 04 May 2025. From the entry U.S. of America
  • Although offered to us bona fide, this opportunity to crew up on the basis of our mutual and personal choices was largely illusory in practice.2003, Murray Peden, A Thousand Shall Fall: The True Story of a Canadian Bomber Pilot in World War Two. From the entry crew up
  • Here, under the marine layer, time and space are illusory, and definition is as hard to come by as an uncloudy day in June.2002 July, Los Angeles Magazine, volume 47, number 7. From the entry uncloudy
  • From an Internetter of 15 years, reflections on cyberspace as an illusory nonplace and on the addictive glut of unnecessary online information.2001, Marcia Yudkin, Internet Marketing for Less Than $500/Year. From the entry internetter
  • She felt the astral concussion of the shooters' killing intention through the RV link as the kill team breached his office door and fired into their illusory targets.2013, Soren Knox, chapter 3, in On Causal Shores: Palimpsest Veil and Ananke Protocol, AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 88. From the entry kill team
  • The Hall of Spiders yawned and shrank, the threads deceiving the eye, the distances, shifting, surging forward or crumbling away, to the illusory reflectings of the moon.1946, Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan, London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, →OCLC. From the entry reflecting

Meaning of illusory

  1. adjective Resulting from an illusion; deceptive, imaginary, unreal.

Full definition of illusory

Questions about illusory in a sentence

How do you use illusory in a sentence?
Illusory is used as an adjective. For example: “The illusory cognition of silver knows illusory silver, but does not know its otherwiseness.”
What is a short sentence with illusory?
“This is fine, of course, but somewhat vague, illusory and politicianese.”
What does illusory mean?
Illusory means resulting from an illusion; deceptive, imaginary, unreal.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: illusory (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use illusory in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/illusory. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.