Delusion

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Dr. Goodword
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Delusion

Postby Dr. Goodword » Sun Nov 15, 2020 5:45 pm

• delusion •


Pronunciation: di-lu-zhên • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: 1. (Countable noun) A deceptive or distorted illusion, false psychotic belief. 2. (Mass noun) The act or state of deluding, tricking or being tricked into believing something that is factually untrue.

Notes: US politics has fallen into a fact-free delusional world that makes today's Good Word highly topical. Delusion is derived from the verb delude. It comes with an adjective, delusional.

In Play: Today's Good Word refers to deceptive illusions: "Narcissism usually leads to delusions of grandeur that can cause massive errors of judgment." It may affect groups as well as individuals: "Voters go to the polls under the mass delusion that the winners of the election will carry through on their promises."

Word History: Today's Good word is a minor revision of Latin delusio(n) "a deception", the action noun from deludere "to play false; to mock, deceive". We see in this word de- "(down) from, off (of)" + ludere "to play". This word also is responsible for ludicrus "sportive", which English snitched and only modestly adjusted to ludicrous. Ludere could be the Latin rendition of PIE leid-/loid- "to play, joke around", which is also visible in Greek loidorein "to revile, rebuke". However, since there is little evidence of it elsewhere in Indo-European languages, this may only be a delusion and the word may just as well have been borrowed from the Etruscan language. (Now let's thank Rob Towart for more than a decade of suggestions as good as today's most topical Good Word.)
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Slava
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Re: Delusion

Postby Slava » Wed Nov 08, 2023 7:24 pm

I must admit, I am quite partial to the phrase 'delusions of grandeur'. It flows so well, and says so much.
Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.


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