Sample sentences for ILLUSIVE - verbalworkout.com

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Definition

based on or having the nature of an illusion (not real)

illusive hopes of finding a better job

A heavy mist lay very low on the water, making a sort of illusive grey light that showed nothing.
Joseph Conrad -- Lord Jim
Illusive winter woods in silence, broken by the snap of heavy wings, an owl in flight.
Thomas Mann -- The Magic Mountain
There were no shadows under the trees but everywhere a pearly stillness, so that what was real seemed illusive and without definition.
William Golding -- Lord of the Flies
Miss Ophelia and the physician alone felt no encouragement from this illusive truce.
Harriet Beecher Stowe -- Uncle Tom's Cabin
Always, it appeared, the illusive little ball was not where he aimed.
Zane Grey -- The Light of Western Stars
He shouted Christine's name, brandished his pistol, knocked his forehead against the glass in his endeavors to run down the glades of the illusive forest.
Gaston Leroux -- The Phantom of the Opera
She looked from near to far, trying to grasp the illusive something.
Zane Grey -- The Call of the Canyon
Like a shy, illusive creature, unused to men, she was troubled by questions, fearful of the sound of her own voice.
Zane Grey -- The Heritage of the Desert
She had power to sit up, hold the reins, guide the horses toward that futile illusive landmark days away on the horizon, but she could not control her mind.
Zane Grey -- The Thundering Herd
The fate of the world rests on one illusive virus and its cure.
Ted Dekker -- Black: The Birth of Evil
But the plague forced inactivity on them, limiting their movements to the same dull round inside the town, and throwing them, day after day, on the illusive solace of their memories.
Albert Camus -- The Plague
Public gossip attributed the romantic adventures of his verses to his own life, but although he had numerous liaisons, true love remained as illusive and as unattainable for him as Novalis's blue flower.
Jostein Gaarder -- Sophie's World
Earlier in the day he had dismissed an inexplicable feeling of change; but now, when there was no longer demand on his cunning and strength and he had time to think, he could not catch the illusive thing that had sadly perplexed as well as elevated his spirit.
Zane Grey -- Riders of the Purple Sage
Here were great oaks and splendid evergreens with trunks like mossy pillars, from the branches of which hung garlands of ivy and mistletoe, and persimmon trees, the odour of which pervaded every nook and corner of the wood—an illusive, fragrant something that made the heart glad.
Helen Keller -- Story of My Life
He was for some time without reflection or thought for the divine charm which is in the things of nature, specially after a fantastic dream; then gradually this view of the outer world, so calm, so pure, so grand, reminded him of the illusiveness of his vision, and once more awakened memory.
Alexandre Dumas -- The Count of Monte Cristo

(Editor's note: The suffix "-ness" converts an adjective to a noun that means the quality of. This is the same pattern you see in words like darkness, kindness, and coolness.)

Some who have lain flat on the ice for a long time, looking down through the illusive medium, perchance with watery eyes into the bargain, and driven to hasty conclusions by the fear of catching cold in their breasts, have seen vast holes "into which a load of hay might be driven," if there were anybody to drive it, the undoubted source of the Styx and entrance to the Infernal Regions from these parts.
Henry David Thoreau -- Walden
Some exceedingly illusive and vital significance of life had insidiously come to Carley.
Zane Grey -- The Call of the Canyon
The wandering roll of prairie-land mocked her with its shining gray distances, its illusive endlessness, its veils of heat.
Zane Grey -- The Thundering Herd
It still stood in sharp relief, no nearer than before, receding with every step, an illusive landmark, which Hare began to distrust.
Zane Grey -- The Heritage of the Desert

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illusive