What's the difference between allusion and illusion?

Allusion


Definition:

  • (n.) A figurative or symbolical reference.
  • (n.) A reference to something supposed to be known, but not explicitly mentioned; a covert indication; indirect reference; a hint.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Both sides sought a decisive goal in a frenetic finish but ultimately the league leaders and the side fighting relegation shared the points and Mourinho wound up making dark allusions to the influence of officials .
  • (2) The research reported here comprises an empirical investigation of the phenomenon of typographic allusion.
  • (3) Although psychiatric literature abounds in allusions to the phenomenon of "déjà vu", few communications were devoted to an analysis of this interesting psychological state.
  • (4) Mislabelling of shadow as distractor words and vice versa, on recall and recognition tasks, showed the strongest correlation with allusive thinking.
  • (5) Alain's allusions to unfamiliar subjects, whether literary or not, are another problem he shares with many French writers – though these aren't really a problem for the translator.
  • (6) Glossy hair with waves and curls: this evokes allusions to Moorish Spain and Mexico.
  • (7) At the recent Encountering the Anthropocene conference convened by the University of Sydney, an Indigenous elder described to me some of the allusive stories of his people's empathetic relationships with whales.
  • (8) Like all Hamilton's interiors it is a space of strange allusiveness and ambiguities.
  • (9) There have been months of speculation, ranging from the discovery in January that variations on the name of the New York City FC team had been registered as domain names , to a recent heavy-handed allusion Commissioner Garber made to there being an announcement expected in a few weeks — widely taken as a reference to the forthcoming Manchester City vs Chelsea friendly at Yankee Stadium.
  • (10) is an allusion to the disbelief that she and the others feel at how people on benefits are being treated, she says.
  • (11) It is hypothesized that allusive, as compared with non-allusive thinkers, have a broader but less intense attention process associated with weaker inhibition.
  • (12) Pressed by Marr on whether he would raise the level of fuel duty, Osborne would not be drawn but made vague allusions to his party’s manifesto commitments.
  • (13) The use of actors enabled Barnard to introduce further layers of allusion to Dunbar's career.
  • (14) He washed volunteers’ feet on the steps of the capitol building in an allusion to the gospel of John, in which Jesus washes the disciples in what Cato said was an act of love “with no caveat”.
  • (15) Rendering these pronunciations on paper gives Riddley Walker the physical intimacy of throat and mouth working, but there's depth and allusion to it to.
  • (16) Horace Walpole (1717-1797) coined the term serendipity in 1754 in allusion to an ancient oriental legend of the "Three Princes of Serendip".
  • (17) But the headline is also an ironic allusion to the state-funded radio service that broadcast anti-communist propaganda around the world during the cold war.
  • (18) The whole King James Bible is littered with literary allusions, almost as many as Shakespeare (to quote that distinguished authority Anon, the trouble with Hamlet is it's so full of clichées).
  • (19) Gay viewers seeking mainstream self-identification in the cinema have usually had to settle for winking nuances and allusions, or at worst, the more oblivious homoeroticism of sundry Michael Bay-style brawnfests.
  • (20) The only allusion to the controversy of the continued presence in this country that I could find in the museum was a notice near the entrance to the Duveen Gallery.

Illusion


Definition:

  • (n.) An unreal image presented to the bodily or mental vision; a deceptive appearance; a false show; mockery; hallucination.
  • (n.) Hence: Anything agreeably fascinating and charning; enchantment; witchery; glamour.
  • (n.) A sensation originated by some external object, but so modified as in any way to lead to an erroneous perception; as when the rolling of a wagon is mistaken for thunder.
  • (n.) A plain, delicate lace, usually of silk, used for veils, scarfs, dresses, etc.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) By using various colors, it is possible to tattoo a nipple-areola complex onto the breast that will have an illusion of projection.
  • (2) Apnea monitoring did not prevent, and in fact perpetrated the illusion of SIDS in this infant.
  • (3) Pope Francis’s no-longer-secret meeting in Washington DC with anti-gay activist Kim Davis, the controversial Kentucky county clerk who was briefly jailed over her refusal to issue same-sex marriage licenses in compliance with state law, leaves LGBT people with no illusions about the Pope’s stance on equal rights for us, despite his call for inclusiveness.
  • (4) Cocaine produces simple hallucinations, PCP can produce complex hallucinations analogous to a paranoid psychosis, while LSD produces a combination of hallucinations, pseudohallucinations and illusions.
  • (5) They must be kept secret because publication would destroy the illusion of a royal neutrality no one in power thinks exists any more.
  • (6) They impose the illusion of order on a chaotic life; they cement our place within and commitment to a collective.
  • (7) The preliminary experiments described here suggest that tilt aftereffects and illusions induced by projected slides of tilted real-object scenes have angular functions similar to that induced by a line grating.
  • (8) These variants, which yielded a robust illusion, included dihedral angles in place of the arrowheads of the classical pattern.
  • (9) During vibration of the depressor muscles with the mandible in its rest position the subjects underestimated an opening movement, but fixation of the mandible caused no illusions of movement.
  • (10) Stimuli were circular beams of light projected on screens (Delboef type of illusion).
  • (11) The director John Hillcoat and I were under no illusions.
  • (12) When the shaft is shortened and reaches neither of the vertices of the two pairs of wings, a reversed Müller-Lyer illusion is observed: a shaft between inward-pointing wings appears to be longer than a shaft between the outward-pointing wings.
  • (13) An illusion is something done one way that looks the other, like if you put a mirror in front of a pencil so the pencil looks like it's somewhere else.
  • (14) The subjects were asked to relate dreams, thoughts, or other mental illusions experienced during G-LOC episodes.
  • (15) While Yarmolenko stayed quiet, Stepanenko left no illusions as to his interpretation.
  • (16) The count of publications on geometric-optical illusions and the bibliography of extant books on the topic are brought up to date.
  • (17) The illusion is of watching a prima ballerina dancing only for you.
  • (18) Is Sisi’s UK visit going to fill my car with gas?’ A lot of people are increasingly disenchanted with the government, simply because it is failing to live up to its own illusions of grandeur.” Among the disenchanted are thousands of workers in the critical textiles sector who are striking over pay and conditions.
  • (19) Four experiments were conducted to investigate the role of "large" squares on the occurrence of assimilation and contrast in the Baldwin illusion.
  • (20) It creates a dangerous illusion that simply by reducing sugar intake, one can eradicate obesity.