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Act of eluding; adroit escape, as by artifice; a mockery; a cheat; trickery.

ively believed or propagated; false belief; error in belief. And fondly mourned the dear delusion gone. Prior.

Of or pertaining to delusions; as, delusional monomania.

The act of deluding one's self, or the state of being thus deluded.

act of prevailing over another by arts, address, or fraud; deception; fraud; imposture; delusion. A school in which he learns sly circumvention. Cowper.

enchantment; to deliver from the power of charms or spells; to free from fascination or delusion. Haste to thy work; a noble stroke or two Ends all the charms, and disenchants the grove. Dryden.

A freak or whim; also, a falsehood; a lie; an illusory pretext; deception; delusion. [Obs.] A perpetual abuse and flam upon posterity. South.

ing external cause, arising from disorder or the nervous system, as in delirium tremens; delusion. Hallucinations are always evidence of cerebral derangement and are common phenomena of insanity. W. A. Hammond.

or taught by, Hermes Trismegistus; as, hermetic philosophy. Hence: Alchemical; chemic. "Delusions of the hermetic art." Burke. The alchemists, as the people were called who tried to make gold, considered themselves followers of Hermes, and often called themselves Hermetic philosophers. A. B. Buckley.…

r unlawful exaction; hence, a trick or deception put on laid on others; cheating; fraud; delusion; imposture. Reputation is an idle and most false imposition. Shak.

Such a mental condition, as, either from the existence of delusions, or from incapacity to distinguish between right and wrong, with regard to any matter under action, does away with individual responsibility.

ere pretense; a fiction; an invention. "Childlike make-believe." Tylor. To forswear self-delusion and make-believe. M. Arnold.

A form of mental alienation in which the patient has grandiose delusions.

f mental unsoundness characterized by extreme depression of spirits, ill-grounded fears, delusions, and brooding over one particular subject or train of ideas.

Wrong imagination; delusion. Bp. Hall.

al derangement of intellect; caused by, or resulting from, monomania; as, a monomaniacal delusion.

ing; apparently right; specious; as, a plausible pretext; plausible manners; a plausible delusion. "Plausible and popular arguments." Clarendon.

Delusion; illusion; trick. [Obs.] The sophisms of infidelity, and the prestiges of imposture. Bp. Warburton.

That form of delusion which leads to extravagant and absurd undertakings or sacrifices in obedience to a morbidly romantic ideal of duty or honor, as illustrated by the exploits of Don Quixote in knight-errantry.

Self-deception; delusion. [Obs.] Shak.