as if

conjunction

1

: as it would be if

It was as if he had lost his last friend.

2

: as one would do if

He ran as if ghosts were chasing him.

3

: that

It seemed as if the day would never end.

4

—used to say that something is not true, not possible, will not happen, etc.

"I am sure I am very affectionate," said Dora; "you oughtn't to be cruel to me, Doady!" "Cruel, my precious love! As if I would—or could—be cruel to you, for the world!"

—Charles Dickens

—sometimes used informally as an interjection to say that something suggested or claimed is impossible, incorrect, or ridiculously unlikely to be true

A simple collection of songs? As if. How about a conceptual ode to London's millennia-old history?

—Craig McLean

Big budgets? High-priced actresses? As if! The film cost a modest $13 million, a figure achieved by not casting stars, but rather stars-in-the-making …

—Nicholas Fonseca

Synonyms

• as
• as though
• like

Examples of as if in a Sentence

she looked as if she wanted to ask one more question before we left

Recent Examples on the Web

Society was not going to use the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery to share generic posts and act as if the knee of this country hasn’t been on the necks of Black artists and civilians for decades. —Paul Grein, Billboard, 15 Apr. 2024

The wife smarted as if her cheeks had been slapped. —Joyce Carol Oates, The New Yorker, 15 Apr. 2024

So far not exactly high mechanical art, but press the actuator at 8 o’clock and those butterflies take flight for 12 seconds as the violets and verdant blades begin to sway as if suspended in a light spring breeze. —Allen Farmelo, Robb Report, 15 Apr. 2024

They’re broadly understood to work by inhibiting hunger and slowing the passage of food from the stomach—effects that sound benign, as if the drugs were little more than pharmacological versions of a fiber-rich diet. —Gary Taubes, The Atlantic, 15 Apr. 2024

The pastries look as if they were overnighted from Paris, even as the signature breakfast sandwich — a biscuit with fried chicken, pimento cheese and hot honey — showcases Southern cuisine. —Kevin Draper Doug Mills, New York Times, 13 Apr. 2024

Moreover, the reboot has an antiquated feel, as if someone wrote the scripts decades ago and unearthed them in the present, barely adding tweaks or updates. —Aramide Tinubu, Variety, 12 Apr. 2024

Pet cats often get briefly shown to convey somebody is living a solitary life (as if living solo with a cat is a bad thing). —James Hibberd, The Hollywood Reporter, 12 Apr. 2024

Then the microphone went to another person, as if this were a conveyor belt of secrets, and there was no time to grapple with the weight of what had just been said. —Hazlitt, 3 Apr. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

13th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Kids Definition

as if

conjunction

1

: the way it would be if

it was as if we had never left

2

: the way one would do if

they acted as if they'd never heard of us

3

: that entry 2 sense 1a

it seemed as if the day would never end