See make-believe on Wiktionary
{
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"etymology_text": "Deverbal of make believe.",
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"tags": [
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{
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"_dis": "27 43 15 15",
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{
"ref": "1985, “The Lady Don't Mind”, in Little Creatures, performed by Talking Heads:",
"text": "Come on, come on, I go up and down / I like this curious feeling / I know, I see, it's like make believe / Cover your ears so you can hear what I'm saying",
"type": "quote"
}
],
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"The quality or act of pretending; acting as if something is true when in fact one knows it is not."
],
"id": "en-make-believe-en-noun-2RvY06Jl",
"links": [
[
"pretending",
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],
[
"as if",
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],
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"(uncountable) The quality or act of pretending; acting as if something is true when in fact one knows it is not."
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{
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"The condition of pretending or imagining that things are better than they really are."
],
"id": "en-make-believe-en-noun-U23G0~xi",
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"(uncountable) The condition of pretending or imagining that things are better than they really are."
],
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"childish",
"sometimes",
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]
},
{
"categories": [],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1897, Richard Marsh, The Beetle:",
"text": "‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Marjorie Lindon, to even think such nonsense. Are you all nerves and morbid imaginings,—you who have prided yourself on being so strong-minded! A pretty sort you are to do battle for anyone.—Why, they’re only make-believes!’",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Something imaginary."
],
"id": "en-make-believe-en-noun-WfIJOCeu",
"raw_glosses": [
"(countable) Something imaginary."
],
"tags": [
"childish",
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]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"ipa": "/ˈmeɪk bəˌliːv/"
},
{
"ipa": "/ˌmeɪk bəˈliːv/"
},
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},
{
"audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-make-believe.wav",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/6/65/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-make-believe.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-make-believe.wav.mp3",
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],
"etymology_text": "Deverbal of make believe.",
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{
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},
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"form": "make believe",
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"Imaginary; not real; pretend."
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{
"ipa": "/ˌmeɪk bəˈliːv/"
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]
},
{
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"tags": [
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{
"ref": "1985, “The Lady Don't Mind”, in Little Creatures, performed by Talking Heads:",
"text": "Come on, come on, I go up and down / I like this curious feeling / I know, I see, it's like make believe / Cover your ears so you can hear what I'm saying",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"The quality or act of pretending; acting as if something is true when in fact one knows it is not."
],
"links": [
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"pretending",
"pretending"
],
[
"as if",
"as if"
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"(uncountable) The quality or act of pretending; acting as if something is true when in fact one knows it is not."
],
"tags": [
"childish",
"sometimes",
"uncountable"
]
},
{
"categories": [
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],
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"The condition of pretending or imagining that things are better than they really are."
],
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"(uncountable) The condition of pretending or imagining that things are better than they really are."
],
"tags": [
"childish",
"sometimes",
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]
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{
"categories": [
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"Quotation templates to be cleaned"
],
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{
"ref": "1897, Richard Marsh, The Beetle:",
"text": "‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Marjorie Lindon, to even think such nonsense. Are you all nerves and morbid imaginings,—you who have prided yourself on being so strong-minded! A pretty sort you are to do battle for anyone.—Why, they’re only make-believes!’",
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}
],
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"Something imaginary."
],
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"(countable) Something imaginary."
],
"tags": [
"childish",
"countable",
"sometimes"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"ipa": "/ˈmeɪk bəˌliːv/"
},
{
"ipa": "/ˌmeɪk bəˈliːv/"
},
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},
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"etymology_text": "Deverbal of make believe.",
"forms": [
{
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]
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"tags": [
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],
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"ipa": "/ˈmeɪk bəˌliːv/"
},
{
"ipa": "/ˌmeɪk bəˈliːv/"
},
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},
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"word": "make-believe"
}
Download raw JSONL data for make-believe meaning in All languages combined (5.4kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-02-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-02-21 using wiktextract (ce0be54 and f2e72e5). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.