mirages

noun

plural of mirage
as in daydreams
something that comes from or exists only in the mind and is not real He thought he saw water up ahead but it was just a mirage.

Related Words

Relevance

Dissimilar Words

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of mirages Season openers often produce outlier performances and knee-jerk overreactions that look like complete mirages by the end of the year. — Antwan Staley, New York Daily News, 14 Sep. 2026 The problems with mail ballots These easily explained mirages don’t necessarily mean that mail-ballot fraud is a nonissue and that there is nothing to be concerned about. — Andrew E. Busch, The Conversation, 23 July 2026 These wall drawings—at the Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville, Maine, in 2024; the Art Institute of Chicago, in 2025; and Houston’s Menil Collection, in 2025—were all temporary, like frolicsome mirages. — Jeremy Lybarger, Artforum, 2 June 2026 The film opens with real mirages filmed near Aswan in Egypt, where atmospheric conditions produce optical distortions. — Lise Pedersen, Variety, 20 Apr. 2026 Multimodal models see ‘mirages’ This past week has brought yet more evidence of how weird these models are. — Jeremy Kahn, Fortune, 31 Mar. 2026 Bat away mirages and stick to what’s really in your viewfinder. — Magi Helena, Dallas Morning News, 16 Feb. 2026 At the frontier edge of astronomy, tantalizing new observations have a tendency to be mirages. — Ross Andersen, The Atlantic, 24 Sep. 2025 But inside, slabs of colored glass, hunks of polished resin, and sundry material experiments gleam like mirages in the sunlight that streams in from the ceiling and windows. — Hannah Martin, Architectural Digest, 4 Sep. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for mirages
  1. daydreams
  2. dreams
  3. visions
Noun
  • This helps warm up the imagination; daydreams, nightmares are easy ways in.
    — Emily Temple, Literary Hub, 20 Oct. 2026
  • The songs on Purdy also have the tone of journal entries, detailing haggard trips to the grocery store, daydreams about his young daughters’ glamorous adult lives, and observations about the banality of oppression.
    — Dash Lewis, Pitchfork, 15 Oct. 2026
Definition of daydreams
Noun
  • Evidence remains mixed, and dreams could also be an experiential by-product of useful sleeping-brain activity, rather than an adaptation with its own job description.
    — New Atlas, New Atlas, 2 Nov. 2026
  • This is the state that Haley Stevens has claimed to literally see in her dreams.
    — Ta-Nehisi Coates, Vanity Fair, 2 Nov. 2026
Definition of dreams
Noun
  • Some opening day effects are long gone, such as the illusion created by actual shifting doors at the start of the attraction, or visions of tumbling rubble near its beginning.
    — Todd Martens, Los Angeles Times, 23 Oct. 2026
  • Polls now show the two running neck-and-neck in a race marked by sharply different visions for Brazil’s economy, security and place in the world.
    — Alessandra Freitas, CNN Money, 23 Oct. 2026
Definition of visions

Browse Nearby Words

mirage
mirages
mire
See all Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Mirages.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/mirages. Accessed 5 Nov. 2026.

Copy Citation
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences

More from Merriam-Webster

Word of the Day

Listen to the pronunciation of effrontery

See Definitions and Examples »

Popular in Grammar & Usage

See More

How to Use 'Who' vs. 'Whom'

Merriam-Webster’s Great Big List of Words You Love to Hate

'Affect' vs. 'Effect'

'A' or 'an'? What about before 'h'? An Indefinite Article Guide

Why is '-ed' sometimes pronounced at the end of a word?
See More

Popular in Wordplay

See More

Great Big List of Beautiful and Useless Words, Vol. 5

9 Words That Sound Like Insults But Aren't

7 Words for Old-Timey Vehicles

Ten More Words from Taylor Swift Songs

12 Lovely and Unusual Words for the Natural World
See More

Popular

See More

How to Use 'Who' vs. 'Whom'

Great Big List of Beautiful and Useless Words, Vol. 5

9 Words That Sound Like Insults But Aren't
See More

Games & Quizzes

See All
Play Quordle: Guess all four words in a limited number of tries. Each of your guesses must be a real 5-letter word.
Quordle Can you solve 4 words at once?
Play Blossom: Solve today's spelling word game by finding as many words as you can using just 7 letters. Longer words score more points.
Blossom Pick the best words!
Play Missing Letter: a crossword with a twist. Each of the 25 puzzle words start with a different letter of the alphabet. Which letter is missing?
The Missing Letter A daily crossword with a twist
couple-laugh-cafe
Quiz: Foreign Phrases You Should Know Check out your bona fides and avoid any faux pas.
See All