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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Illusion \Il*lu"sion\, noun [F. illusion, L. illusio, fr. illudere, illusum, to illude. See {Illude}.]
1. An unreal image presented to the bodily or mental vision; a deceptive appearance; a false show; mockery; hallucination.
To cheat the eye with blear illusions. --Milton.
2. Hence: Anything agreeably fascinating and charming; enchantment; witchery; glamour.
Ye soft illusions, dear deceits, arise! --Pope.
3. (Physiol.) A sensation originated by some external object, but so modified as in any way to lead to an erroneous perception; as when the rolling of a wagon is mistaken for thunder.
Note: Some modern writers distinguish between an illusion and hallucination, regarding the former as originating with some external object, and the latter as having no objective occasion whatever.
4. A plain, delicate lace, usually of silk, used for veils, scarfs, dresses, etc.
Syn: Delusion; mockery; deception; chimera; fallacy. See {Delusion}. {Illusion}, {Delusion}. Illusion refers particularly to errors of the sense; delusion to false hopes or deceptions of the mind. An optical deception is an illusion; a false opinion is a delusion. --E. Edwards.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
illusion
noun
1: an erroneous mental representation [syn: {semblance}]
2: something many people believe that is false; "they have the illusion that I am very wealthy" [syn: {fantasy}, {phantasy}, {fancy}]
3: the act of deluding; deception by creating illusory ideas [syn: {delusion}, {head game}]
4: an illusory feat; considered magical by naive observers [syn: {magic trick}, {conjuring trick}, {trick}, {magic}, {legerdemain}, {conjuration}, {deception}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
138 Moby Thesaurus words for "illusion": aberrancy, aberration, air, airy nothing, apparition, appearance, bamboozlement, bedevilment, befooling, bewitchery, bewitchment, bluffing, brainchild, bubble, calculated deception, captivation, chimera, circumvention, conning, deceiving, deception, deceptiveness, defectiveness, defrauding, delirium, delusion, delusiveness, deviancy, distortion, dream, dupery, eidolon, enchantment, enmeshment, ensnarement, entanglement, entrancement, entrapment, errancy, erroneousness, error, ether, fallaciousness, fallacy, falseness, falsity, fancy, fantasque, fantasy, fascination, fault, faultiness, fiction, figment, flaw, flawedness, flimflam, flimflammery, fond illusion, fooling, hallucination, hamartia, heresy, heterodoxy, hoodwinking, idle fancy, ignis fatuus, imagery, imagination, imagining, insubstantial image, invention, kidding, maggot, make-believe, maya, mirage, misapplication, misapprehension, misconception, misconstruction, misdoing, misfeasance, misinterpretation, misjudgment, mist, mistake, myth, obsession, outwitting, overreaching, peccancy, perversion, phantasm, phantasmagoria, phantom, pipe, pipe dream, possession, putting on, rainbow, romance, seeming, self-contradiction, self-deception, semblance, shadow, sick fancy, sin, sinfulness, smoke, snow job, song and dance, spirit, spoofery, spoofing, subterfuge, swindling, thick-coming fancies, thin air, trickiness, tricking, trip, unorthodoxy, untrueness, untruth, untruthfulness, vapor, victimization, vision, whim, whimsy, wildest dreams, willful misconception, wishful thinking, witchery, wrong, wrongness
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