OPTICAL ILLUSION

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does optical illusion mean? 

• OPTICAL ILLUSION (noun)
  The noun OPTICAL ILLUSION has 1 sense:

1. an optical phenomenon that results in a false or deceptive visual impression

  Familiarity information: OPTICAL ILLUSION used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• OPTICAL ILLUSION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An optical phenomenon that results in a false or deceptive visual impression

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural phenomena

Hypernyms ("optical illusion" is a kind of...):

optical phenomenon (a physical phenomenon related to or involving light)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "optical illusion"):

apparent motion; apparent movement; motion; movement (an optical illusion of motion produced by viewing a rapid succession of still pictures of a moving object)

mirage (an optical illusion in which atmospheric refraction by a layer of hot air distorts or inverts reflections of distant objects)

 Context examples 

The researchers think this optical illusion is responsible for most of what appear to be individual jets.

(Saturn Moon's Activity Could Be 'Curtain Eruptions', NASA)

One theory is that in the context of in-person actors’ faces, the LPS lighting created a kind of optical illusion.

(Rosy health and sickly green: color associations play robust role in reading faces, National Institutes of Health)

Many features that appear to be individual jets of material erupting along the length of prominent fractures in the moon's south polar region might be phantoms created by an optical illusion, according to the new study.

(Saturn Moon's Activity Could Be 'Curtain Eruptions', NASA)