delusion
Pronunciation
- UK: /dɪˈl(j)uːʒ(ə)n/, /dɪˈl(j)uːzjən/[1]
Etymology
It is inherited from Middle English delusioun,[2][3][4] borrowed from Latin dēlūsiō (“a deceiving”),[5][6][2][7] a noun of action from dēlūsus, the past participle of dēlūdō (“to play false, mock, deceive”),[6][2][3] from dē- and lūdō (“to play”).[6][2] The ODE and the Shorter Oxford call the source Late Latin.[8][9] The OED compares a rare French delusion of the 16th century.[5] It belongs with delude, and Klein compares allusion.[7]
Earliest recorded meaning
The act of deceiving someone with false impressions, or the state of being so deceived: about 1420, in Lydgate's Story of Thebes,[5][4] where someone is put in dilusioun, that is, deceived.[4] Etymonline dates it to the early 15th century.[6]
Semantic evolution
In the 15th and 16th centuries the word meant deceit or trickery, the deluding of a person by someone else;[6][4] the sense of cheating someone in his expectations was used until the mid-17th century.[5] From the 1550s it was also a false impression or a fixed false belief, especially as a symptom of mental disorder.[5][6] Johnson (1755) gave "a cheat; guile; deceit" first and "a false representation; illusion" second.[10] The phrase delusions of grandeur is recorded from 1840,[6] and the OED records from 1909 the sense of a false belief that one is more important than one is.[5] In American use of the early 20th century it could also mean a fixed fondness for something.[5]
Timeline
- c. 1420 – the deluding of someone with false impressions, in Lydgate.[5][4]
- before 1513 – the cheating of someone in his expectations (obsolete by 1656).[5]
- 1552 – a false impression or fixed false belief (the mental sense from the 1550s in Etymonline).[5][6]
- 1606 – evasion (obsolete).[5]
- 1840 – delusions of grandeur.[6]
- 1909 – a false belief about one's own importance.[5]
Meanings
Noun
- A mistaken or misleading belief or idea: He was under the delusion that the job would be easy.[11][3][5]
- In psychiatry, a false belief held firmly against clear evidence to the contrary, as a symptom of mental disorder.[11][3][5]
- The act of deluding someone, or the state of being deluded.[11][3][5]
- delusions of grandeur: a false belief in one's own importance.[11][6][5]
Word family
- delusional
- delusionary
- self-delusion
Related words
Usage notes
Etymonline, after the Century Dictionary, distinguishes a delusion, a false belief that the mind has wholly accepted as true, from an illusion, a false impression from the senses or imagination that is held only provisionally.[6] Collins likewise refers the psychiatric sense to illusion and hallucination.[11]
References
- ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
- ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
- ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
- ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
- ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
- ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
- ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
- ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
- ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins