- make-believe
- 1) N-UNCOUNT (disapproval) If someone is living in a make-believe world, they are pretending that things are better, different, or more exciting than they really are instead of facing up to reality.
The man lived in a make-believe world surrounded by bizarre props including a pilot's raincoat and a microlite aircraft that he had never flown...
She squandered millions on a life of make-believe.
2) N-UNCOUNT You use make-believe to refer to the activity involved when a child plays a game in which they pretend something, for example that they are someone else.She used to play games of make-believe with her elder sister.
...his make-believe playmate.
3) ADJ You use make-believe to describe things, for example in a play or film, that imitate or copy something real, but which are not what they appear to be.In the video, Michael Jackson danced down a make-believe street protesting that `the kid is not my son'...
The violence in those films was too unreal, it was make-believe...
`But, why?' he asked in make-believe astonishment.
English dictionary. 2008.
