Sentence Examples:
It's not simply that imaginative youngsters sometimes have a hard time telling "make-believe" from "real life."
When hard deadly reality breaks through their web of make-believe, they cower together in corners and howl.
A strip of cloth tied around each neck, below the bulge, served as make-believe arms, suitable for all ordinary purposes, and, with a little assistance, capable of saluting an officer or waving to a comrade.
Marjorie picked up her basket and skipped down the road singing at the top of her voice, and before she had time to think about how far it was she was back home telling Mamma all about the queer little elf from Make-Believe Land.
Instantly he saw past the make-believe, into the real, and what he saw caused him to utter a smothered cry.
The make-believe is hardly more than a cement to join the queerly wrought stones of fact that were found ready.
The make-believe of ferocity passed out of his growls; the ferocity in them became real.
The skeptic often tells us that he will have no "make-believe."
Every thing was turned topsy-turvy in this their game of make-believe.
And undoubtedly his subtlety was to some extent a matter of make-believe.
Still, whatever our ultimate destination and fate may be, the fact remains that we are now as fit for active service as seven months' relentless schooling, under make-believe conditions, can render us.
It has all been make-believe, with dummy cartridges, and fictitious ranges, and snapping triggers.
I, too, had heard some stories about this gloomy make-believe castle that had been built in the lonely woods by old Judge Randall when he married a young wife, and wanted to carry her away from the rest of the world.
Though they seemed to be having a good time, he had soon seen that most of it was make-believe, and that much of their energy was spent in trying to find something to play with, that they might forget what kind of journey they were on.
Can you afford to shirk, or make-believe or practice pretense in any act of life?
They are frightfully ignorant, and everything they do is make-believe.
On the contrary, it will be his very sincerity that necessitates his make-believe.
For Aeschylus, though steeped in the glory of the world of legend, would not lightly accept its judgment upon religious and moral questions, and above all would not, in that region, play at make-believe.
We're going to make-believe steamboat a long way across the deep water now.
"We had a make-believe steamboat," explained the oldest boy.
Tell us, Laddie, and then we'll get in the make-believe steamboat Russ has made, and we'll have a ride.
She could no longer bear the torture of make-believe quiescence.
And this is the sure touchstone by which to detect the real thing of light and the make-believe.
There is none of the red tinge to this make-believe light.
Amber nodded smilingly; she thought what a make-believe world these young brides lived in, and then she sighed.
"Make-believe ghosts and nothing more," he mused.
I feel bitter, too, for I spent half my life in your country and my dearest friends are all English still; and yet I am deeply ashamed of the hypocrisy and make-believe that has initiated your national policy and brought you down.
"Well, I mean a make-believe Indian fever," said the little girl.
He is a pretty stern proposition; and if there is anything he won't stand it is pretense, make-believe.
It was acting a lie for her to make-believe clumsiness just to keep the others from laughing at him.
Do you suppose we are deceived by your make-believe friendliness?
All Browning is seen in this pathetic gaiety, this eagerness and unrest and passionate make-believe of a lover's mood.
Certainly neither the boldest private inquiry nor the most delicately worded public advertisement had proved able to discover the whereabouts of "Molly Make-Believe," much less succeeded in bringing her back.
Farnsworth were holding a colloquy in what seemed to be the vein of their whimsical make-believe.
"No, it was only a make-believe one," Bunny said, as he began to brush the grass off his clothes.
It was as if the fabric of my make-believe had been rent asunder.
A work of art is said to have its effect through its tendency to arouse in us a make-believe acceptance of the scene or motive presented, while it nevertheless remains contrasted with the realities of our lives.
In school the child lives in an atmosphere of unreality and make-believe.
No one is more alive than he was to the worth of all that adds grace and dignity to human life; but the sincerity of this feeling filled him with aversion for the make-believe dignity of a luxurious and artificial community.
Her make-believe world of seven weeks had crumbled in an hour, and she had not had time to readjust herself.
The poets, painters, talkers who lived up there were at each other all the time in their great game of make-believe.
All this bleak stretch of his history he crosses, in a sort of delirium loading the battered old car with company of the make-believe kind whom he has watched the children in the city parks playing with long ago.
It seemed dreadful to pronounce fate, even in make-believe, on that dimpled, smiling bit of humanity.
I might have sewed a patch on, but that would have been make-believe!
All fiction has in it some elements of truth, and they are the sources of the inspiration which comes to children when, in their world of make-believe, they live with their beautiful and heroic friends of the story books.
He shoved the soiled greens into the submissively open mouth of the make-believe camel.
A very little make-believe and you were lifeboat-men landing survivors from a wreck.
She would play very nicely with the dolls, but, when it came to make-believe creatures, she was sadly wanting, and the best response Molly could expect to get when she built a fairy dwelling was: "Oh, I say, that is a proper little house, isn't it?"
I knew that your innuendo in the cabin was all make-believe.
Then the larger reindeer that had lost their antlers started off to make-believe higher lands.
If they broke down in their make-believe he rapped them on the knuckles.
You even liked Nana to say that this was just the mantelpiece over here, and that the Neverland was all make-believe.
Perhaps there was still some lingering sense in me that would fail to succumb to this astonishing make-believe.
They had invented all sorts of pastimes, with make-believe audiences, such as little children create for their plays.
Let us then create a make-believe assailant.
The common confectionery make-believe kisses, wrapped in paper, with a verse to sweeten them, won't answer with them.
He frowned upon the victim of his delicate repartee with make-believe defiance.
The man ejaculated blankly, stopping short and dropping his make-believe weapon.
I was sick of the pious make-believe, and itched to escape over here.
Unable, however, to keep up this make-believe recklessness, Jingle sat down at length and sobbed like a child.
Remembering this in time, the novelty of make-believe palled on Staff.
Near his bed, at night, always lay Jack's own splendid suit of make-believe soldier clothes.
Imitative play does the same, in that it enables the child to perform, in make-believe, the important deeds of adults.
Who were these shams and make-believe men?
It is all make-believe, ye ken, but many a good lesson is learned by good stories.
Couldn't we have something real to eat on the make-believe steamboat, Mother?
"Do you want to play Indian and let me shoot you with my make-believe gun?"
Pretty soon there was a rustling in the bushes, and along crept the make-believe Indians, softly and silently.
And there was a bunch of laurel hanging in the middle of the room, as make-believe mistletoe.
She knew that his apparent carelessness was only make-believe.
Many times since learning such a sad lesson in the uncertainties of life, Glen had pulled this watch from his pocket, simply to assure himself of its reality, and that it was not a make-believe like his birthday.
Hurled from my private, make-believe Eden, I must somehow begin anew.
Said Miss Robinson, her face shining with make-believe gluttony.
The place looked strangely tawdry and make-believe this morning.
He spoke of an awakened nation, impatient of partisan make-believe, hindered in its development by circumstances of privilege and private advantage, and determined to undertake great things in the name of right and justice.
My consciousness was so seared by what I had gone through that the mere make-believe of my position was a relief to me.
The little make-believe river is very narrow, and so shallow that we were constantly in danger of running aground.
He sat on a beam lying at the ship end of the pool and stared moodily at the pitiful make-believe.
The existence of so much sham and make-believe implies the existence of the real and true.
Roy pinched her cheek to be sure that this was a real, and not a make-believe, Olive; while Polly followed her to her room to assure herself that her hair had really grown half an inch, as Aunt Milly declared it had.
"I suppose you will think our sleighing a make-believe, after Lindsay, and locality."
The make-believe of a foreign cousin was a ruse to prevent the exposure of the Saxon villain.
Was it just a conventional gambit to make-believe repentance and promise faithfully never, never to be naughty again?
Is she a real grand lady, or only a strutting make-believe?
Yet at the last moment it was he who wavered, he who rang down the curtain on their make-believe.
My world seemed make-believe, and my interests counterfeit.
Make-believe tea in pewter cups.
True, it was make-believe from start to finish, without even blank cartridge to give the vaguest hint of reality.
Their books are filled with unnatural, make-believe emotions, and egregious nonsense in the place of ideas.
Such old women do not shirk life's misery by feeble idealism, for they are long past the stage of make-believe.
Deceptive, delusive, counterfeit, sham, mock, spurious, false, make-believe.
The sordid make-believe of passion had pleased him vastly.
A few more tears, a little more make-believe penitence, and she knew she would be forgiven.
"And now, sir," continued the farmer, looking at Charley as sternly as he could, while a pleasant smile played about his mouth, plainly showing that the knitted brows were but drawn down in make-believe anger, "this is the way I shall punish you."
I do not think a fairy story is wrong, because we both know it is make-believe, that there are no fairies, but your mother thinks them wrong, and I do not want you to do what you will not tell her you do.
Ah, her beauty: I saw it against the sticks and pricks of make-believe!
As a make-believe island in a raging sea of grass, he had often used it to be cast away upon, but chiefly had he employed it as a vantage ground from which to watch his father and his father's friends at their games of tennis.
Is this, I wonder, an insect make-believe, a caterpillar mask, as it were, to frighten away enemies?
Then why display this make-believe Affection and profusion?
The Dream had been merely the make-believe of the bitterly oppressed, who had taken to desperate lying as a last resort.