as in errors
a false idea or belief
the belief that going outside with wet hair will cause you to catch cold is just an old wives' tale
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for old wives' tales
Noun
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No man’s land Remarkably, all of this has been happening in a regulatory vacuum and with technology that is known to make errors.—
Parmy Olson,
Mercury News,
7 Mar. 2026 -
Documents released since December have included redaction errors, leaked victim identities, and ongoing complaints of mishandling by department officials.—
Alanna Durkin Richer,
Los Angeles Times,
6 Mar. 2026
Noun
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One of the projects, Ono Ghost Market, which was originally developed as a streaming series before being retooled as a feature film, will draw inspiration from Asian myths about supernatural marketplaces.—
Wesley Stenzel,
Entertainment Weekly,
7 Mar. 2026
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But the drastic measures that looksmaxxers are willing to take are lethal to one of their own foundational myths—the myth of natural beauty.—
Becca Rothfeld,
New Yorker,
7 Mar. 2026
Noun
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No more division, distraction of gender delusions.—
Peter Wehner,
The Atlantic,
6 Mar. 2026
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Multiple studies have explored the tendency of chatbots to encourage users’ delusions.—
Andrew R. Chow,
Time,
4 Mar. 2026
Noun
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Only hours into the conflict, an errant strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ school in southern Iran served as a gut-wrenching reminder of the cost of such illusions, and a testament to the grim truth that those who pay most dearly for the fog of war are almost always the innocent.—
Karim Sadjadpour,
The Atlantic,
4 Mar. 2026
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Miuccia Prada, herself a billionaire, has no illusions that the runway is a space for political grandstanding.—
Rachel Tashjian,
CNN Money,
3 Mar. 2026
Noun
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The zodiac signs and their associated superstitions spread from Mesopotamia to Greece and Rome and eventually became part of European tradition.—
Manon Bischoff,
Scientific American,
8 Mar. 2026
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That’s why guys have superstitions and routines.—
Haley Smilow,
Mercury News,
22 Feb. 2026
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Cite this Entry
“Old wives' tales.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/old%20wives%27%20tales. Accessed 12 Mar. 2026.
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