mirage

Unadapted borrowing from French mirage c. 1812.

• IPA^(key): /mɪˈɹɑːʒ/, /məˈɹɑːʒ/, /mɪˈɹɑːd͡ʒ/

• Audio (US):

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• Rhymes: -ɑːʒ

mirage (plural mirages)

1. 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

2. (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.

• gravitational mirage
• red mirage

mirage (third-person singular simple present mirages, present participle miraging, simple past and past participle miraged)

1. (transitive) To cause to appear as or like a mirage.
   • 1915, E. Phillips Oppenheim, Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo‎^[1]:

     All that had been in his mind seemed suddenly miraged before him—the removal of Hunterleys, his own wife's failing health.

   • 1901, A. E. W. Mason, Ensign Knightley and Other Stories‎^[2]:

     The vision of a salon was miraged before her, with herself in the middle deftly manipulating the destinies of a nation.

• “mirage, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.

• mirage on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• Margie, gamier, imager, maigre

From mirer +‎ -age.

• IPA^(key): /mi.ʁaʒ/

• Audio (Paris):

  (file)

mirage m (plural mirages)

1. mirage

• “mirage”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• émigra
• gémira
• germai
• maigre