Sentence Examples:
The tigers ride bicycles, and the leopards jump about wherever the trainer tells them to; a monkey acts as clown, and a little elephant runs a make-believe automobile.
Always short of money as they were, they could only and by dint of great sacrifices indulge in a species of make-believe luxury.
He is not fairly to be called a hypocrite, but I have already confessed to the more exasperation at his make-believe reverence, because it has no deep hunger to excuse it.
The common life passed on its way without bothering its head further, leaving the artist caste to wither in a make-believe refinement.
There, during her make-believe convalescence, she came to consider the very serious nature of her love's stratagem, and she determined to make a full confession to her lover.
The era of pomp and circumstance, as of genial make-believe, is gone by; more and more are our writers beginning to give us militarism stripped of romance, a grisly but (I suppose) useful picture.
That the actor's art is but glorified make-believe, the actor himself too often hollow as a drum, though loud sounding as one, never for an instant occurred to her.
One has been amazed by his magnificent make-believe as he has told one about dim forgotten peoples that have disappeared under the ground.
The two ragged wanderers were sitting on the stones bordering the ditch or "moat" that surrounded the make-believe ancient castle.
Still it is great fun to play make-believe, and the world would have convulsions if we did not indulge in these pleasing deceptions.
And in a moment I saw it was caused by a great many fresh twigs of spruce, all stuck upright in the snow and set carefully in rows, like a child's make-believe garden.
When finally the features stirred, disturbed by forces far down, he had come to that make-believe orchard of spruce twigs.
The cheerfulness with which they shout out their exercises proves plainly enough that they are only keeping "make-believe" school.
It tells of things as they are, all stripped of make-believe, and shows how men love only themselves, and how ugly and mean is the world when we look at it aright.
Six little Bunkers, and they were such a jolly bunch of tots and had such good times, even if a make-believe steamboat did upset now and then, that I'm sure you'll like to hear about them.
The beds were made over subterranean caves, the wardrobes were make-believe doors, in every corner was lurking an assassin.
He seemed so naive, so wistful to her, this strange father whom she could never understand, but who seemed like a child very keen on a game of make-believe.
And then the fortune-teller spoke in his own tongue, and too absorbed were they in the game of make-believe to notice that he made use of neither sand nor stars nor the lines upon her hands, which were clasped above her heart, as he read her future in her eyes.
Even young children quickly sense any make-believe enthusiasm or vivacity on the part of the teacher, and their ardor immediately cools.
Whatever was dull the Midas touch of her imagination made golden, so now it was easy to close her eyes and conjure up a make-believe chum that for the time was as good as a real one.
If we went out, the make-believe continued even in the street; the two hermits would say the Rosary, using their fingers to count on, so as not to display their devotion before those who might scoff.
Lucille and the young men were so interested in the pretty faces all about them, that they had little time for an English luncheon, and most of their eating was a make-believe.
It was easy enough to put make-believe tiger stripes on one side, or on half a dog, but it was very hard to put half a dog in a cage, and leave the other half outside.
They love it, and their devotion is no make-believe, fashioned out of sentiment, and donned for the purpose of hiding inefficiency or native indolence.
And when Bunny got make-believe shot with an Indian arrow he said he wasn't going to play fever more'n five minutes 'cause he saw what I had for him to eat.
They had great fun at this, and made quite a big fort, getting inside it and throwing snowballs at a make-believe enemy on the outside.
There was a flash of gaudy paper through the air, a resounding impact of tin against wood, and the make-believe duck skipped away as though fearful of danger.
Before long Flossie went to the kitchen to ask Dinah for some cookies to have a make-believe party in the snow house, and when the cook had given them to her, and the little girl was about to come out, she looked from the window and saw a strange sight.
By half-seven I was home again, and Gaston found me, fresh and blooming, in my morning dress, sauntering about with a make-believe nonchalance.
They saw the tents and wagons, in which lived the dark-skinned men, women and children who traveled about from place to place, buying and selling horses, baskets and other things, and telling fortunes; which last, of course, they don't really do, it being only make-believe.
She had been a dreamer, an adept at make-believe, but the poor coverings she had wrought for a dingy reality were now too threadbare to hide it.
The common run of plain men, as has been noticed since the beginning of the world, are as eager as children for a story, and like children they will embrace the man who will tell them a story, with abundance of details and plenty of color, and a realistic assurance that it is no mere make-believe.
As it stands, I should not have grieved though the clouds had never been dispersed from so foolish a medley of magic and make-believe.
The dogs, too, were mad, tearing after make-believe enemies and worrying one another till there were several curs less for the hunt.
They pottered about in the boat for a while, talking make-believe out-on-the-ocean talk, hauling sails and working the helm.
Then, in make-believe, Germany has offered to restore Alsace and Lorraine, has offered to hold all French territory as sacred, provided France allows her to occupy Calais for one year.
Those boys who did not belong to the troop pretended to scoff at the idea of undertaking such a wearisome march; but this was pretty much make-believe.
He never threw lumps of soil or apples or potatoes at me now; but he would often make-believe to be about to hurl something, and if he could not get away because of his work he always turned his back.
This sort of thing interested me; I liked life in the actuality where there was no counterfeit or make-believe to offend the sense of just proportions.
It was no mere childish make-believe or priestly subterfuge to regard the pouring out of water as a means of animating a block of stone.
Subconsciously he thought of Brennan's indictment of Gibson as a fraud and a dishonest "make-believe," a consummate actor in the role of a villain in real life.
This play of the imagination is most uncontrolled and spontaneous in childhood, which is often characteristically defined as the period of make-believe or fancy.
"There seems to be considerable bluster about this business, and I'll wager something you won't have to stand up before him if you will put on a bold front and make-believe you are eager to meet him."
A leisure class no sooner arises than the melancholy monotony of amusement forces it into mimic work and make-believe activities.
After scrubbing bravely for a minute or two, he took the bit of rag, and mopped up, and then squeezed make-believe water out into his make-believe pail, as grave as any judge that ever sat on a Bench.
Even when their "work" is quite perfunctory and useless, mere make-believe, like the games of little children, they get paid far more than the actual workers.
As each name was pronounced its owner gave a ceremonious little bow such as is always used in make-believe introductions, and the newcomer bowed gravely to each in acknowledgment.
He could revel gloriously in make-believe, yes; but perhaps for this very reason he found himself terribly prone to doubt facts!
This astonishing profession of indifference to the fascination of the football hero, indifference which Miss Barbara declared to be only make-believe, was made on a Saturday.
The wise purpose is to make them kind, moral, educated and industrious Indians, not make-believe white men, and the work is doing and promising well in sincere and capable hands.
I was a fanciful child, too used to conjuring up weird situations and make-believe happenings to be easily scared by what other children might dread.
Ready for the make-believe repast, string number five was pulled, and when the box was opened the Little Cousin fairly squealed, for there was a real luncheon for Dolly and herself, all in twos!
There were moments when the hollow present snapped under their feet like a broken twig, and then the light in their eyes darkened, and they ran out upon the safer path of make-believe.
About his parents was the glamour of a romance as tender as any he disclosed to delighted audiences in the world of make-believe.
As the quaint, slyly humorous, make-believe gypsy, she found full play for all her talents, and she captured her audience almost with her first speech.
A loud report, and then another, brought them back rudely from a make-believe wood near Athens to a peril-haunted park in an English county.
Given a pile of books and an empty floor space, their imagination needs no mechanical models of real locomotives; or, to be more correct, they enjoy the make-believe with quite as great a zest.
First, he will be entirely without any make-believe or pretence of feeling; for the open display even of dislike is more becoming to an ingenuous character than a studied concealment of sentiment.
If it is a Christmas party the tree is the source of interest, and often a make-believe Santa Claus adds to the merriment of the occasion.
Getting closer, what was his amazement to find that these natural-size soldiers and steeds were only make-believe affairs to be burned for the dead monarchs!
It affected him as droll, fantastic, like a piece of childish make-believe, when the woman took some more money from him for his meals and lodging.
Now and then a great gray eagle flapped by, or a bear prowled along; but, after all, it was a clumsy make-believe, and didn't scare anybody much.
He would show us the muse of poetry, as impartial, as sweeping in its vision, as modern, as real, as free from the morbid and make-believe, as the muse of science.
It was she who shed the truest tears, but it was she also who rebelled most at the make-believe which convention forced upon her; and the usual sense of hopeless exasperation was strong in her mind.
Edward had been masterful exceedingly, imperious, perhaps a little narrow; impassioned for hard facts, and with scant sympathy for make-believe.
The ladies were busy, of course, with their crochet, embroidery and sewing; but these are only make-believe labors, for one must not seem to be wholly idle.
He had jumped up, stroked back his hair, and stood before her, with a make-believe of buttoning his gloves, and settling his necktie.
I have sometimes wondered that he should believe this great change so feasible, but I understand how he came to think so when I read of his strange power of impressing beliefs on himself, with such force as to leave a trail of discomfort in the mind after the make-believe had ceased.
I was trying to make-believe that I didn't want to meddle with your affairs; but I was really vexed that you hadn't told me your story before.
I frankly admit that the writers of my own generation have sometimes been a little smug and make-believe about young girlhood.
The outer walks were broad, the inner intersecting paths were narrower; the tall planting in the various beds prevented a view from one path to another, and this was half of the garden's fascination to the children who played there in the games of make-believe.
Daddy's flying attitude influenced them all secretly, and the great human power of make-believe, so gingerly expended as a rule, asserted itself.
Everything seems fresh from the hand of the Creator; there is no veneer, no make-believe, and over all there is solace and repose.
The little make-believe mother was talking to her babies and answering for them in even thinner and more subdued voice than her own; though she had the low voice of a child accustomed to play alone.
The author, to our mind, was wrong from the beginning in describing his comedy on the program as a comedy of "moonshine, madness and make-believe."
He had come true in the make-believe world where he was the greatest wonder of all for the little princess, but this boon which she craved most was probably not for her.
Dolly would make believe to laugh at Robert's accounts of his coming honors; but it was easy to see that it was only make-believe incredulity.
Then there was that trouble with Lynn's foot, something that had turned out, rather to Lucinda's astonishment, to be a real injury, no make-believe feigned for an occasion.
Captain Ferguson met me at the gangway, and saluted me as if I were really owner of the vessel and not a make-believe, such as I really was.
It was like a caricature of children in one of their make-believe chases; the screams, grimaces, and actions were so human that it would have seemed like a tragedy had one of them been hurt.
There is no need to suppose that in this simple kind of imitative make-believe children know that they are acting a part.
With a make-believe severity that had no more effect than to send him dejectedly flopping down the verandah steps, to creep up again before he had reached the bottom.
There were a few cookie crumbs sticking to her dress, and that was all that was left of the treat she had been taking to a make-believe poor lady.
Enormously ingenuous, the wayside cow lumbers reproachfully out of the path, knocking the grains of excellent make-believe coffee from the withered dock.
They're all wearing khaki, all in; and it wasn't the same world without them, only a dreary make-believe, and so I decided to deceive the War Office and join my friends.
The adventures of little Maggie's foundling doll will appeal very successfully to the make-believe imagination of little children, and greatly delight them.
Never mind, I hereby make-believe the flowers are for me, the blood-red roses and the little white ones, sweet hot-house children.
In some sort of fashion she knew herself to be a sham, always experimenting with effects and make-believe feelings, but, try as she would, she could never drive realities home into her heart.
I had left the Lee to the fishermen and the make-believe swimmers, but the bells would sound sweetly here under the tower that held them.
From her lonely little world, peopled with make-believe inhabitants, she had been transported through the air to the center of reality.
We tacitly resolve to play a game of make-believe with ourselves, to forget that which cannot be forgotten, to remove to an incalculable distance that which is inexorably near.
Then the expression was supplanted by a hard, make-believe confidence, leaving him merely with a fading sense of shame at his tone.
Forbes was looking for an adventure, and Brown had a make-believe one on hand, which, if prudently handled, might be made to serve the purposes of their mutual ambitions.
I wanted to shake the child, so completely for the moment did I feel that a lot of her emotion was make-believe, even if unconscious; but on the other hand she was actually beginning to turn pale and tremble with the nervous excitement she had raised by her fear or her theatricals.
It is not the gentle fiction, the make-believe of exertion played at by indolent women and invalids, to which we are accustomed.
Term used by females on make-believe errands, when the real object of their departure from home is to replenish the private bottle.
Everybody does the same thing: or, just the same, everybody would do it, given the chance: it is a world of pretension, make-believe, and seeming.
Ah, but I think a baby like this one would sooner have a make-believe fountain than a real one, so she could play with it.
She was the commanding general in that famous "Indian fight" when, with Mary and Mother, she held the fort against the attack of two dreadful, make-believe savages and a dog.
"We'll have a make-believe party," she declared tactfully, dropping a couple of soup cubes in each cup and adding the hot water.