optical illusion

noun

plural optical illusions

: a misleading image presented to the vision

Zebras look like optical illusions to me. Which are they—black with white stripes or white with black stripes?

—Al Robinson

The sun, moon, and planets circle above the terrestrial plane in the region of the equator. Their apparent rising and setting is an optical illusion caused by atmospheric refraction …

—Ranger Rick

Examples of optical illusion in a Sentence

The closer building looks larger than the farther one, but it's just an optical illusion. The two buildings are actually the same size.

Recent Examples on the Web

Chambers met Soule, a 49-year-old artist known for drawing flowing grids as optical illusions, in 2009 in San Francisco. —Renée Reizman, Los Angeles Times, 8 May 2024

How the optical illusion—modeled here by Lulu Tenney—was achieved: On top of bleached brows and sheer pastel pigments, McGrath misted seven or eight coats of a concoction composed of various peel-off masks and water through an airbrush machine. —Hamish Bowles, Vogue, 16 Apr. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1763, in the meaning defined above

Kids Definition

optical illusion

noun

: illusion sense 1

Medical Definition

optical illusion

noun

: visual perception of a real object in such a way as to misinterpret its actual nature