Top Qs
Timeline
Chat
Perspective
mirage
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Remove ads
English
Etymology
Unadapted borrowing from French mirage c. 1812.
Pronunciation
Noun
mirage (plural mirages)
- An optical phenomenon in which light is refracted through a layer of hot air close to the ground, often giving the illusion of a body of water.
- Hypernym: optical illusion
- Hyponym: Fata Morgana
- (figuratively) An illusion.
- 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter VI, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 68:
- I remember hearing, that in the East the clear and azure waters seem to flow before the weary and parched traveller; yet a little further, and on he urges his weary way, but in vain—the fair stream is a delusion. Even thus happiness is the mirage which leads us over the desert of life, ever fated to end in deceit and disappointment.
Derived terms
Translations
an optical phenomenon
|
illusion — see illusion
Verb
mirage (third-person singular simple present mirages, present participle miraging, simple past and past participle miraged)
- (transitive) To cause to appear as or like a mirage.
References
- “mirage, n.”, in OED Online
, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
Further reading
Anagrams
Remove ads
French
Etymology
Pronunciation
Noun
mirage m (plural mirages)
Descendants
- → Bulgarian: мира́ж (miráž)
- → Catalan: miratge
- → English: mirage
- → Esperanto: miraĝo
- → Galician: miraxe
- → Hebrew: מִירָאז׳ (mirázh)
- → Italian: miraggio
- → Polish: miraż
- → Portuguese: miragem
- → Romanian: miraj
- → Russian: мира́ж (miráž)
- → Serbo-Croatian:
- Cyrillic script: мираж
- Latin script: miraž
- → Spanish: miraje
- → Thai: มิราจ (mírâat)
Further reading
- “mirage”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Anagrams
Remove ads
Wikiwand - on
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Remove ads