as in imaginary
not real and existing only in the imagination
zoomed around the house in a make-believe car
Synonyms & Similar Words
Relevance
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
as in fiction
Related Words
make believe
3 of 3phrase
as in pretend
to present a false appearance of
He made believe he was sick to get out of going to school.
Synonyms & Similar Words
Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of make-believe
Mac Barnett, Longreads, 5 May 2026
The counterargument is that the world is filled with so many visible atrocities right now that a make-believe movie poster seems like the least of our problems.
—Brian Davids, HollywoodReporter, 20 Apr. 2026
Condé Nast, Condé Nast Traveler, 21 Feb. 2026
Now, a new study suggests that such make-believe play is not a uniquely human talent, but a skill that great apes also possess.
—Amarachi Orie, CNN Money, 9 Feb. 2026
See All Example Sentences for make-believe
Adjective
Kids just call it make-believe.
—Mac Barnett, Longreads, 5 May 2026
The counterargument is that the world is filled with so many visible atrocities right now that a make-believe movie poster seems like the least of our problems.
—Brian Davids, HollywoodReporter, 20 Apr. 2026
Noun
Park Güell is an almost make-believe landscape, home to Barcelona’s famous mosaic lizard—the image on a thousand postcards—plus spiral towers that look like fairground slides.
—Condé Nast, Condé Nast Traveler, 21 Feb. 2026
Now, a new study suggests that such make-believe play is not a uniquely human talent, but a skill that great apes also possess.
—Amarachi Orie, CNN Money, 9 Feb. 2026
See All Example Sentences for make-believe
Recent Examples of Synonyms for make-believe
Adjective
-
Amounts that would have looked imaginary three years ago are now the entry ticket.—
Renana Ashkenazi,
Forbes.com,
26 May 2026
-
But his idealized vision of a past paradise of social cohesion that late-stage capitalism destroyed doesn’t reckon with the snakes that were always there in this imaginary Eden, including a personal betrayal that’s close to home and only comes slithering out in a moment of drunken weakness.—
Leslie Felperin,
HollywoodReporter,
22 May 2026
Noun
-
Rebecca Makkai’s 2018 historical fiction novel The Great Believers, certainly comes to mind, as does Hanya Yanagihara’s 2023 novel To Paradise.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
29 May 2026
-
The idea to create a docu-fiction where a character is inserted into real-life environments to interact with unsuspecting locals came to Ribeiro after spending long periods of time in El Paso as a journalist covering immigration.—
Carlos Aguilar,
Los Angeles Times,
28 May 2026
Adjective
-
Those crews worked on the Country Club Plaza, in a home in Lee’s Summit and around local soccer fields — all on the Missouri side, even though the fictional Coach Lasso hails from Kansas.—
Lisa Gutierrez,
Kansas City Star,
29 May 2026
-
The show, which follows Beth Dutton and Rip Wheeler moving to the fictional South Texas town of Rio Paloma, premiered May 15 and airs Fridays on Paramount+ and the Paramount Network.—
Fort Worth Star-Telegram,
Fort Worth Star-Telegram,
29 May 2026
Noun
-
Their measurements closely matched theoretical predictions and simulations, validating the core physics behind the approach.—
New Atlas,
New Atlas,
30 May 2026
-
Especially since a perfect kill rate in simulation is very different from real battlefield performance.—
Christopher McFadden,
Interesting Engineering,
30 May 2026
Adjective
-
However, operators often hide behind fictitious or stolen identities and fail to comply with cease-and-desist letters; meanwhile, hosting servers are often untraceable, shielded by anonymization techniques or by being located in countries where legal enforcement is extremely difficult.—
Emma Woollacott,
Forbes.com,
27 May 2026
-
He is charged with one count of unlawful voting by aliens and one count of the procurement, casting, or tabulation of ballots that are known to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent under state law.—
Louis Casiano,
FOXNews.com,
19 May 2026
Noun
-
Before Helios, the team built IKARUS, an earlier platform that served as a testbed for teleoperation, imitation learning, and dual-arm manipulation.—
Omar Kardoudi
May 29,
New Atlas,
29 May 2026
-
Its core capability is a whole-body imitation learning system that enables it to learn tasks by observing human demonstrations and executing them independently with high precision.—
Jijo Malayil,
Interesting Engineering,
28 May 2026
Adjective
-
Today, the municipality doesn’t seem too eager to promote its affinity for the international language (its tourism office tends to focus more on local castles and caves), but Herzberg has achieved near-mythic status among some Esperantists.—
Katie Thornton,
Harpers Magazine,
26 May 2026
-
Horses, those strange mythical creatures.—
Nielsen Dinwoodie,
Forbes.com,
26 May 2026
Noun
-
With Freedman’s representation in pocket, events already are in motion that indicate a legal tussle is in the making — perhaps behind closed doors, perhaps not.—
Dominic Patten,
Deadline,
28 May 2026
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Custom photos and videos provide an authentic representation of a company’s brand, attracting new customers while also engaging existing ones.—
Anthony Savino,
Forbes.com,
28 May 2026
Cite this Entry
“Make-believe.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/make-believe. Accessed 1 Jun. 2026.
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