Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Make believe   Listen
verb
make believe  v. i.  To pretend; often used with that, but often having the that omitted; as, he made believe he didn't hear her; or he made believe that he didn't hear her.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Make believe" Quotes from Famous Books



... over Alcatraz, veiled the Exposition domes and turrets in a mystic glory. Sometimes it was like a great white nothingness; then, as if by magic, Color, Forms and Beauty leaped forth like some startling vision from a Land of Make Believe. ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman

... to make believe, Aaron, as you say," Tommy replied sadly. "If you knew how I feel the folly of it now, perhaps even you would wish ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie

... anywhere near so glad to see me as I am to see you. I have been sticking to business and trying to make believe that Louisville is as nice as Ryeville, and Louisville girls are as beautiful as they are reputed to be, and that the law is the most interesting thing in the world, but somehow I can't fool myself. Are you glad to ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson

... sweet, 'Tis known that thou and I were one; I'll think it but a fond conceit— It cannot be that thou art gone! Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toll'd— And thou wert aye a masker bold! What strange disguise hast now put on, To make believe that thou art gone? I see these locks in silvery slips, This drooping gait, this alter'd size: But springtide blossoms on thy lips, And tears take sunshine from thine eyes! Life is but thought: so think I will That Youth and ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... the snow man into the snow house?" Freddie wanted to know. "That'll be more fun than dolls. And we can make believe the snow house gets on fire, and I'll be a fireman and put it out. Oh, let's play that!" he cried, his ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Great West • Laura Lee Hope

... It is the one thing I really care for. There is often danger, but it is the kind that does not steal round your back. Hereafter I shall devote my time to butterflies. You can make believe—is that what you call it?—each butterfly is a great rascal. The more difficult the netting, the more cunning the rascal . . ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath

... fewer toys. So they had to invent stories for themselves, and as for the toys, to make believe very much indeed. But how they would have succeeded in either had it not been for Jinny I ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth

... where I was going he took me back in the library and started in," she went on. "He was so angry he could scarcely speak. If he had let it go it wouldn't have been so bad. But to try to make believe he wasn't angry! His hypocrisy ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... ever were a decent, healthy boy, or if you can make believe that you once were such a boy, you must remember that you were once in love with a girl a great deal older than yourself. I am not speaking of the big school-girl with whom you thought you were in love, for one little while—just because she wouldn't look at you, ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner

... above you, and the dead still all around. And you think, and think, and think! You remember all kinds of things you've never thought of for years and years. I used to talk to myself at last, and make believe it was another man. I was out seven days: and he was only out one night. But I think it's the loneliness that got hold of him. Man, those stars are awful; and that stillness that comes toward morning!" He stood up. ...
— Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland • Olive Schreiner

... you like it! To be sure, you can moon about here as much as you please, and make believe to do something, and there's nobody to contradict you. In a great centre of industry you couldn't live like that; you must work or you'll get pushed aside altogether; unless, of course, you're a millionnaire to start with," Mr. Copperhead ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... some carpenter shavings and tie them on Ned's dog's neck," said Bunny. "We could make believe ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Playing Circus • Laura Lee Hope

... districts, which tariff feeds fat; and the eager interest of the few overpowers the apathetic general conviction of the many. Banknotes rob the public, but are such a daily convenience that we silence our scruples, and make believe they are gold. So imposts are the cheap and right taxation; but by the dislike of people to pay out a direct tax, governments are forced to render life costly by making them pay twice as much, hidden in the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various

... chile, she doan forget ole Willium nor dat horse," chuckled the darkey. "Dat steed, miss, hardly git a good feed now once a week, but he knows dat he carries his Excellency, an' dat de army 's watchin' him, an' he make believe he chock full of oats all de time. He jus' went offen his head when Ku'nel Forrest's guns wuz a-bustin' de Hessians all to pieces dis mornin', an' de way he dun arch his neck an' swish his tail when Gin'l Howe give up his sword made ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... me the buttered toast," said Nurse Rosemary; "and don't tell me any more naughty stories about the duchess. No! That is the thin bread-and-butter. I told you you would lose your bearings. The toast is in a warm plate on your right. Now let us make believe I am Miss Champion, and hand it to me, as nicely as you will be handing it to ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay

... Youth's no longer here! O Youth! for years so many and sweet, 25 'Tis known, that Thou and I were one, I'll think it but a fond conceit— It cannot be that Thou art gone! Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toll'd:— And thou wert aye a masker bold! 30 What strange disguise hast now put on, To make believe, that thou art gone? I see these locks in silvery slips, This drooping gait, this altered size: But Spring-tide blossoms on thy lips. 35 And tears take sunshine from thine eyes! Life is but thought: so think I will That Youth ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... his chair. "I venture the conjecture, that if he has any darling pet name for her, such as Pinky-winky,' 'Little Fooly,' 'Chignonentily,' or 'Waxy Wobbles,' he feels horribly ashamed if any one overhears it, and coughs violently to make believe that be never ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various

... sound the voices of my fellow-boarders, "be a good fellow and sing us one of the old chap's songs; or at least something or other of that day, and we'll make believe it was the air with which he killed ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee

... in England from whom she expected great things for her little boy. But the boy died, and Mrs. Reed, being afraid that her mother-in-law would not be willing to leave any property to a girl, determined to play a little trick, and make believe that her second child ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton

... most dangerous feature of the case. It is the same sort of pride which makes Smilax think he must hire a waiter in white gloves, and get up a circuitous dinner-party on English principles, to entertain a friend from England. Because the friend in England lives in such and such a style, he must make believe for a day that he lives so too, when in fact it is a whirlwind in his domestic establishment equal to a removal or a fire, and threatens the total extinction of Mrs. Smilax. Now there are two principles ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... that. He'll rush you at the go-off, but don't get rattled. You just and stall, and clinch. He can't hurt cover up, much. Just make believe to yourself that he's choppin' out on ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London

... town, who always did the noble thing, disdaining the unworthy in act or motive. It seemed to me that he was modelling his own life, perhaps unconsciously, after the favored types which his imagination had created for his stories. In a certain sense he was living a life of make believe, wherein he was the hero of the story, and in which he was bound by his ideals always to act as he would have the hero of his story act. It was a quality which only one could have who had preserved a fresh youthfulness of outlook in spite of ...
— Appreciations of Richard Harding Davis • Various

... know, when I was a little tad and couldn't sleep at night with the pain, I used to make believe I was a 'truster' and say over to myself all the nice, comforting things I wished they would say. It began to sound so real that one day I answered—just as if some one ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer

... me even to make believe," he said to himself. "No! It wouldn't be a fair dream to ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... so nice," exclaimed Marian giving her a little squeeze. "Grandma never says such things. She doesn't ever like to make believe. She says the facts of life are so hard that there is no time to waste in pretending." Marian's manner as she said this was so like her grandmother's that Miss Dorothy could but smile. "I am glad you took some of the photographs ...
— Little Maid Marian • Amy E. Blanchard

... him. He nipped my legs, arms, and hands, often so hard that I yelled, while I rolled him and tumbled him and dragged him about, often so strenuously as to make him yelp. In the course of the play many variations arose. I would make believe to sit down and cry. All repentance and anxiety, he would wag his tail and lick my face, whereupon I would give him the laugh. He hated to be laughed at, and promptly he would spring for me with good-natured, menacing jaws, and the wild romp would go on. I had ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London

... come down here to dine, you know, they only make believe to dine. They dine here, Law bless you! They go to some of the swell clubs, or else to some grand dinner-party. You see their names in the Morning Post at all the fine parties in London. Why, I bet anything that Ringwood has his cab, or Trail his Brougham (he's a devil of a fellow, and ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... fix a picnic your way some time, Pat-ricia! It would be a heap more fun. It must be fine to be a large family and make believe together. It's a problem for an only child to make mischief all by itself. ... Did you have real good times in that old ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey

... fancy that I can think of you in any other light than that of a beautiful woman, gifted with more than your share of intellect. I prefer that our friendship should rest on this obvious fact. We are too old 'to make believe,' as children say. I came to this conclusion within an hour after ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe

... but you won't play in it any way you figure it. If you don't quit willingly you'll quit the other way. I'm giving you a fair chance, that's all. You've only got to make believe you're sick or play sort of rottenly a couple of times. That will do the trick for you and there ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour

... to try that, now. I wish we had another image to shoot at, but I'll take a big dry-goods box, and make believe it's an elephant. Now, this is going to be a hard test, such as we'd meet with, if we were hunting in Africa. I want you ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton

... reached me, O auspicious King, that when the neighbours proposed to heap fuel about the cabinet and to burn it the Kazi bawled out to them, "Do it not!" And they said to one another, "Verily the Jinn make believe to be mortals and speak with men's voices." Thereupon the Kazi repeated somewhat of the Sublime Koran and said to the neighbours, "Draw near to the cabinet wherein we are." So they drew near, and he said, "I am so and so the Kazi, and ye are such an one and such an ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... had varied at the sight of his sister's tears, and he fell to patting penitently the hand that quivered on the table. "You needn't give me the doughnuts, Aunt Saidie; I'll make believe you didn't say it," he whispered ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow

... things—not only of flowers, you know, but of the new things just coming up in the vegetable garden, and—and—well, this parsley happens to be the only really gardeny thing I have, so I thought I'd bring it along and sniff it once in a while, and make believe it's the country, ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber

... came to Perseus in a dream, and let us make believe that we are dreaming now. She had great gray eyes, clear and piercing, and she knew all thoughts of men's hearts and the secrets of their souls. My eyes are not gray, Alec, nor can they pierce as hers; but I ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy

... work to us—saying good by to our friends, and we tried to make believe that we should spend the next summer in Deephaven, and we meant at any rate to go down for a visit. We were glad when the people said they should miss us, and that they hoped we should not forget them ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... does," Nick mumbled. Then he said aloud, "If you used to like making believe then, wouldn't you just try it for a little while now? Make believe I'm going to take you round in my car, and I'll tell you some of the things that will happen ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... going to put a garland on my head and make believe I'm drunk, yes, and I'll climb out on the roof yonder (pointing to Amphitryon's house) and repel our returning hero in glorious style from up above there. I'll see that he's both soaked and sober. Then that servant Sosia of his shall promptly ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius

... looked (the idea of disarmament, you see, was serious), whether he didn't say these things because he knew we saw him as he really was; because he saw himself as he really was, and couldn't bear it; because there was no escape for him unless he could make believe that he was in fun ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair

... I am paralytic without him. He bequeathed his share of the business to Mrs. Craggs, her executors, administrators, and assigns. His name remains in the Firm to this hour. I try, in a childish sort of a way, to make believe, sometimes, he's alive. You may observe that I speak for Self and Craggs - deceased, sir - deceased,' said the tender-hearted attorney, ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens

... thought has not come to me yet, but sometimes I get it in what may seem to you a very odd way. Forgetting myself, I try to assume the individuality of the person who has worked the mystery. If I can think with his thoughts, I possibly may follow him in his actions. In this case I should like to make believe for a few moments that I am Mr. Spielhagen" (with what a delicious smile she said this) "I should like to hold his thesis in my hand and be interrupted in my reading by Mr. Cornell offering his glass of cordial; then I should like to nod and slip off mentally ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green

... at first thought inexplicable, for why should any one picture himself as having a bad time, as misunderstood by his best friends, ill-treated by his family, jilted by his best girl, unsuccessful in his pet schemes? Why should any one make believe to be worse off than he is; what satisfaction can that {495} be to him? Certainly, one would say, the mastery motive could not be active here. And yet—do we not hear children boasting of their misfortunes? "Pooh! That's only ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth

... glad they like me," thought the Stuffed Elephant to himself, for just now he was not allowed to speak out loud or move around, as the Make Believe toys could do at certain times. But these times were when no eyes of boys, girls, ...
— The Story of a Stuffed Elephant • Laura Lee Hope

... in the nursery, And I want to talk to you, dear; So you must come and sit by me, And make believe ...
— Harper's Young People, December 30, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... upper servant, who took care of her mistress and her children. Catharine was and is now the cook. Eliza appeared to her mistress to be a very well educated, and a very intellectual woman of 35, though she would try to make believe she could not write, and that she was subject to fits of insanity. There was then presumptive evidence that she wrote a good deal, and there is now positive evidence that she could write. She used often, in the presence of Mrs. L., to take the Bible and other books and read them, and ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson

... more, should they have; when they frowned, I let them see that their frowning and their half-drawn knives mattered no doit to me. It was their whim—a huge jest of which they could never have enough—still to make believe that they sailed under Kirby. Lest it should spoil the jest, and while the jest outranked all other entertainment, they obeyed as though I had been ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston

... the little folks in one grade what things they ought to keep in mind when crossing a busy street. The one that gives the best answer is made 'Little Safety Scout.' One of the biggest boys plays he's the crossing policeman, other children play street cars, others make believe they're automobiles, and so on. The rest are just people trying to get across the street, and they have trouble trying to understand what the policeman's whistle signals mean, and some get run over, and some are saved by the 'Little Safety Scout,' and others show ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey

... Alan Mowbray Stevenson, usually called Bob, visited them; a great treat for Louis, not only because his ill health kept him from making many companions of his own age, but because Bob loved many of the same things he did and to "make believe" was as much a part of his life as Louis's. Many fine games they had together; built toy theatres, the scenery and characters for which they bought for a "penny plain and twopence colored," and were never tired of dressing up. One of their chief ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton

... do not often make an ado about this. They talk it over among themselves, and take men as they are. They quietly soften them down, and smooth them out, and polish them up, and make the best of them, and simply and sedulously shut their eyes and make believe there isn't any worst, or reason it away,—a great deal more than I should think they would. But if you want to see the qualities that a woman, spontaneously loves, the expression, the tone, the bearing that thoroughly satisfies her self-respect, that not ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various

... we'll make believe the fire's out," said Bunny. "I was going to stop playing, anyhow. Where are you going, Mother?" he asked, for he saw that his mother was dressed as she usually was when ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on Grandpa's Farm • Laura Lee Hope

... communities. It is good for the mental and physical health of both old and young to be lifted, once in a while, out of the world of reality into that of the imagination. All children and young people like to play, to act, to make believe. This is a part of their life, and it is conducive to their mental and social welfare to express themselves in simple plays or to see life in its various phases ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy

... the heather," says he, "and about the ancient old chiefs that are all by with it lang syne, and just about what songs are about in general. And then whiles I would make believe I had a set of pipes and I was playing. I played some grand springs, and I thought I played them awful bonny; I vow whiles that I could hear the squeal of them! But the great affair ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... You haven't to make believe, you know; you have got only to act yourself. Come, begin.—I declare, Satinalia, I think this satin dress is getting ...
— The House in Town • Susan Warner

... with their mirror," continued the lawyer. "What a fuss they made about that broken glass! You know that Rougon is quite capable of having fired his gun at it just to make believe ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... Mr. Mansell virtually teaches us that we cannot know anything of God, duty, or immortality; and that faith means, taking for granted on some outward authority. To use a striking expression of President James Walker, "We are not to believe, but to make believe." That is, we are not to believe with our intellect, but with our will. Or, in other words, we are to believe not what is true, but what is expedient. This he calls regulative truth, as ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke

... with a pretty blush. "But then, you know, he could hardly say less after such a frank confession on my part. It is no more than decent of him to make believe, even if it is not true. Now, Katy, look at Boston, and see if ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge

... "Now, make believe you are in debt, and eaten up by relentless creditors; you are out of work—which is horse-shoeing, let us say—and can get none; and your wife is sick, your children are crying ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... the rest of the dear creatures, rubbing their horned heads against the hedge as usual; and two or three of them standing knee-deep in the great shallow pool, where Fred and Allan used to sail their boats, and make believe it was the Atlantic. We always called the little bit of sedgy ground under the willow America, and used to send freights of paper and cardboard across the mimic ocean, which did not ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... back, and in a few minutes is, figuratively speaking, turned inside out. Then they espy the good-natured admiring face of their mother, peering at them over the corner of the straw, and at her they all rush. They make believe that she is a fox, and her life is accordingly not worth ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... any cigar and baking-powder and liver-pill signs plastered over the rocks, thank goodness! If man has traveled that way before, you do not have the evidence of his passing staring you in the face. You can make believe it is all your own—by right of discovery. I'm afraid your England would seem rather little and crowded after a month or two of this." She swept her hand toward the river, and the grass-land beyond, and the mountains ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower

... some one has put them there since I went up-stairs," said Max. "But I don't believe in them, Walter. I think they were only make believe." ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley

... willingness is all, forget that it seems no more in our power to believe than it is to love. We apparently "fall into" the one as we do into the other; we do not choose to believe, we cannot help believing. And unless a man's mind is satisfied with the reasonableness of faith, he cannot "make believe." Romanes, who certainly wished for fellowship with the Christian God as ardently as any man, confessed: "Even the simplest act of will in regard to religion—that of prayer—has not been performed by me for at least a quarter of a century, ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin

... lady, what you plan to tell me next. If I complain, If I seem an atom peevish at the preference you mention — Or imply, to be precise — you may believe, or you may not, That I'm a trifle more aware of what he wants than you are. But I shouldn't throw that at you. Make believe that I forgot. Make believe that he's a genius, if you like, — but in the meantime Don't go back to rocking-horses. There, ...
— The Three Taverns • Edwin Arlington Robinson

... which you are to make believe a feast, trust in each other is the one condition that may avail. This trust must come of no mere exchange of vow or deeply-sworn and eloquent promise; it must be knowledge one heart of the other, clear and absolute; and such knowledge ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne

... lighted on a party of people living on Masuko fruit, and making mats of the Shuare[45] palm petioles. We have hard lines ourselves; nothing but a little maere porridge and dampers. We roast a little grain, and boil it, to make believe it is coffee. The guide, a maundering fellow, turned because he was not fed better than at home, and because he knew that but for his obstinacy we should not have lost the dog. It is needless to repeat ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone

... quiet of course. As I sat there, he held my hand in his until he sank in a doze; and even then, when I withdrew my hand to leave him to come here (which Mr. Redlaw was very earnest indeed in wishing me to do), his hand felt for mine, so that some one else was obliged to take my place and make believe to give him my hand back. Oh dear, oh dear," said Milly, sobbing. "How thankful and how happy I should feel, and do ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens

... the laughter had subsided; "you make believe to care something about me, and yet will not listen to what ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... did not want to use the roads. It was with the old familiar sense of make believe adventure that they started on what they called a Bee-line southwest. And it was mid-afternoon before, hungry and leg weary, they reached the store that backed up ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow

... his ingenious devices for amusing her and diverting his own weariness as he lay sick in bed, e.g., tearing up sheets of white paper into tiny bits, and then letting her pour them out of the window to "make believe it snowed," or counting all the bristles in a clothes-brush, and then as she came in from school, holding it up and bidding her guess their number—his coolness and efficiency in the wild excitements of a conflagration, ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... once and clung to it, though it hurt. And all the while Barebone knew at the back of his heart that his life was not his own to shape. At the end, says an Italian motto, stands Destiny. Barebone wanted to make believe; he wanted to pretend that his path lay down a flowery way, knowing all the while that he had a hill to climb and Destiny ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman

... Wetterhahn sent him away—not I. Change will be good for him. And for me too. I am going to make believe we are at home for a little while. And you are going to see the Green vaults; and I am going to see everything. And these rooms are ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner

... unconscious of anything unusual. There seemed to be a general consent to a shallow pretence that I was in utter and hopeless ignorance. It annoyed me a little, as I flattered myself that I knew quite as much about what was coming as any of them, and I thought it silly to make believe I didn't, and to ignore my interest in the affair. Bessie had no secrets from me, of course, and our understanding was complete, but one might have thought from appearances that we had less concern in the matter ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous

... so fast, not so fast, little Tsar Novishny, for thy dogs have already gnawed their way through ten doors!" The little Tsar picked up the rottenest wood he could find and flung it on the fire, to make believe he was making haste, but sprinkled it at the same time with water, so that it might not burn up too quickly, and yet the kettle soon began to boil. Again he went to the forest for more wood, and the starling said to him, "Not so fast, not so ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous

... did so, the soul-deep feeling with which she had spoken to the portrait fled. Why was it that, so often, when absent from him, her imagination helped her to make excuses for him, inspired her to press the real truth out of sight, and to make believe that he was worthy of a love which, but through some inner fault of her own, might be his altogether, and all the love of which he was ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... to leave this pleasant place, and your friends who will miss you, and your snug homes that you've just settled into, why, when the hour strikes I've no doubt you'll go bravely, and face all the trouble and discomfort and change and newness, and make believe that you're not very unhappy. But to want to talk about it, or even think about it, ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame

... charity of the public, assume positions in which it would seem impossible that they could remain, submit themselves to fearful tortures, or else, by their mode of living, their abstinence, and their indifference to inclement weather and to external things, try to make believe that, owing to their sanctity, they are of a species superior to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 446, July 19, 1884 • Various

... Christmas dinners, but neither of these worthy seamen had ever accepted any of these invitations. Even holiday food, when not cooked in sailor fashion, did not agree with Captain Cephas, and it would have pained the good heart of Captain Eli if he had been forced to make believe to enjoy a Christmas dinner so very inferior to those which Miranda ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton

... GOSLING,—I've just thought of a little joke. I want to see if he'll know me. Now you go and talk to him a little, and—presently, you know—say there's a man in the drawing-room, who's come to wind the clocks, and then I'll come in to where you are, and make believe to wind the clock there—do you see? I'd bet anything he won't ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 16, 1891 • Various

... spirits, then, and with sparkling eyes, Marjorie completed her confession. "Yes," she went on, "after you said last night that you b'lieved us children could turn your hair white in a single night, I thought I'd make believe we did. So,—and you know, Grandma, you told me I could stay around in your room for a while, and look at your pretty things,—so, when I saw that queer sort of a powder-shaker I couldn't help playing with it. And then when I saw your bed all fixed so nice for the night, I thought ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells

... "Say, make believe that beach doesn't look good!" exclaimed Teddy to Billie, for they had fallen a little behind the rest. "And the good old ocean—say, what a ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler

... find too much fault. Human nature could not stand the pork and beans, but I tried my best to put up with the beef, and make believe it was delicious. ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens

... same time. Kosciusko asking what he meant, he answered, "As soon as a poor man on the road takes off his hat and asks for charity, the horse immediately stands still, and won't stir till something is given to the petitioner; and, as I had no money about me, I was obliged to make believe to give something, in order to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various

... call my friends, and make believe Their spirits grieve, Brood, and rejoice with mine; I talk to them in phrases quaint and fine Over ...
— Behind the Arras - A Book of the Unseen • Bliss Carman

... anything funnier, and at the same time more provokingly stupid, dirty, and inefficient, than the tribe of black-faced heathen divinities and classicalities who make believe to wait upon us here,—the Dianas, Phillises, Floras, Caesars, et cetera, who stand grinning in wonderment and delight round our table, and whom I find it impossible, by exhortation or entreaty, to banish from the room, so great is their amusement and curiosity at my outlandish modes of proceeding. ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... Captain Bailey, with a wink. "We've been havin' more or less of an argument, Sol. Remember how Barzilla made fun of Jonadab Wixon for believin' in dreams? Yes, well that was only make believe. He ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln

... around their village and near their nestlings are bespangled with myriads of dewdrops. The cocks crow vigorously, and strut and ogle; the kids gambol and leap on the backs of their dams quietly chewing the cud; other goats make believe fighting. Thrifty wives often bake their new clay pots in a fire, made by lighting a heap of grass roots: the next morning they extract salt from the ashes, and so two birds are killed with one ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone

... asked Zora, "to make believe you likes people when you don't, when you'se afeared of them and thinks they may rub off ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois

... not wrong in the first place, for I was a mere baby. The whole world was new and wonderful to me, and one thing seemed about as strange to me as another. I could not see much difference between the real and the unreal, between the "truly true" and the make believe. When I said my mamma had silk dresses, spangled with ...
— Aunt Madge's Story • Sophie May

... an evening Mr. Sharpley would amuse himself with what he called a mock trial—that is, he would make believe he had been taken up for theft, and I was to be examined before a judge to see if I had assisted him or knew anything about it; then he sat as judge, and I was always to deny having any knowledge of the theft, and when I did ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas

... those of Ruth. Lady Horton sat silent, her heart fluttering with dismay and perplexity. Heaven had not equipped her with a spirit capable of dealing with a situation such as this. Blake stood in make believe stolidity dissembling his infinite chagrin and the stormy emotions warring within him, for some signs of which Diana watched his countenance ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini

... Now I must make believe I'm Clara, and do the sentimental up brown!" concluded Capitola, as she seated herself near the door where she could be heard, and began ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth

... Then, on raising her eyes she beheld the name of the Rue Marcadet, and she suddenly had the idea of going to see Goujet at his forge. He had no end of times told her to look in any day she was curious to see how iron was wrought. Besides in the presence of other workmen she would ask for Etienne, and make believe that she had ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... spoke, and had therefore no fear of failing on that score; but he doubted he should not be received, because he was too young and well-favoured. So, after much pondering, he fell into the following train of thought:—The place is a long way off, and no one there knows me; if I make believe that I am dumb, doubtless I shall be admitted. Whereupon he made his mind up, laid a hatchet across his shoulder, and saying not a word to any of his destination, set forth, intending to present himself at the convent in the character of a destitute ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio

... awning over the trolley-car she might have used the parasol to make believe she had not seen us. But the awning precluded that, and we were not more than ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... have the mumps!" announced Cousin Ethel, puffing out her pretty pink cheeks, to make believe they were swollen with ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells

... daring enough to say things he "hadn't oughter," and the music and the moonlight gets into your head, and you feel young and reckless and sentimental, then all of a sudden Memory recalls another moonlight night when the youth and the romance weren't merely make believe, and your mind travels wearily over the intervening years, and you sit up straight and look severe and ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little

... will spoil their pleasure in it if he can. My life has been embittered by that kind of person. If you are able to tell of a special distinction that has fallen to your lot, it gravels them; they cannot bear it; and they try to make believe that the thing you took for a special distinction was nothing of the kind and was meant in quite another way. Once I was received in private audience by an emperor. Last week I was telling a jealous person about it, and I could see him wince ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain

... my hypothesis of pretense at poisoning has irresistible force. Because, if it was not to use it before, why did she have it with her before? And if it was not that she wished to hide the fact that she had used it before, why did she wish to make believe that she ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux

... and pretend that we are a humdrum couple, going on in a jog-trot sort of way, it's only because I'm such a silly little thing, John, that I like, sometimes, to act as a kind of Play with Baby, and all that: and make believe." ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens

... much whispering among the children. The two youngest looked with wondering eyes at their elder sister, who was going away. Little Lorentz gave her his horse as a keepsake, and Asta gave her youngest doll. And Merle went about trying to make believe that Louise was only going on a short visit, and would soon ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer

... with his master and mellowed, he would make believe to work close by, so that at times they might drop into talk, recalling names that had died out of the Glen, shrewd sayings that fell from lips now turned to dust, curious customs that had ceased forever, all in great charity. Then there would ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren

... Marchioness nurses Dick in his fever, and puts his favorite philosophy to the hard test of asking him whether he has ever put pieces of orange-peel into cold water and made believe it was wine. "If you make believe very much, it's quite nice; but if you don't, you know, it hasn't much flavor:" so it stood originally, and to the latter word in the little creature's mouth I seem to have objected. Replying (on the 16th of December) ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... to try and make believe I'm sober. After this I stick to beer, And drop the circus when the sane folks leave. A man's a fool to look at things too near: They look back and begin ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various

... continued, in an impressive, awestruck whisper. "He had to come out of his bed at night—Santissima Maria!—and it was the ghosts of all the people buried in San Marcuolo who dragged him and kicked him to teach him better, because he wanted to make believe the dead stayed in their graves! So where was the use ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... the neighbourhood parish, all bedecked with cheap brooches and babs of ribbon, leading by the hand the little child of his daughter wronged and dead. He said never a word but stood just within the door expectant—a reproach to cleanliness, content, good clothes, the well fed, and all who make believe ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro

... dear man!" the colonel gave a murmuring remonstrance; "for," said he to Clara, whom his apostrophe to Flitch had set smiling, "we're not safe with him, however we make believe, and he'll be jerking the heart out of me before he has done.—But if two of us have not the misfortune to be united when they come to the discovery, there's hope. That is, if one has courage and the other has wisdom. Otherwise ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... chance against Cochise? He's the only living creature that Cochise fears. Can't you see we must make believe—must keep up with him until we are rid of the Apaches? Bad as he is, he's a white man. Cochise is a—devil! When he tired of Blossom, he'd give ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet

... wedding-party, and I tell you, Ruth, to stand up at the altar with a girl he is already half in love with, plays the very deuce with a man. Kentucky girls are all pretty, I suppose—everybody says so, and you have to make believe you think so whether you do or not; but this one—you know her? Isn't she the prettiest thing you ever saw? Well, of course she didn't know I was engaged, and I kept putting off telling her, until the first thing I knew I was letting her see how much ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell

... sofa is a haycock, just at the back of Copthorne Farm. I can almost hear the lazy hum of the bees, and smell the fresh mown grass. I am not in a silk tea jacket, but my old blue cotton frock with the tear in the elbow, you remember I caught it on a nail by the gate. Isn't it fun to make believe like children? We don't often play, do we Philip? You must take my hand very gently, under the hay," pulling the cushion over her wrist. "I draw it away, you see, rather shyly, looking deliciously coy, and say: 'Oh! you ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham

... am the coward, to only make believe I am not afraid. I am very afraid, and now more than always will I be afraid when that you go to hunt. 'Arry King, go no more alone." Her voice was low and pleading. "There is much to do. I will teach you to speak ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine

... said, "is my idee of a squash pie. It isn't slickin' up and tryin' to look like custard, nor yet it don't make believe it's pumpkin; it just says, 'I am a squash pie, and if there's a better article you may let ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards

... what we saw, and if you just make believe that you're standing on a little hill near that old pit and looking south toward Black Lake, you'll see just what we saw—as you might say. We saw the water just pouring through Nick's Valley and coming ...
— Roy Blakeley's Adventures in Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... rather something very different? You're just trying to dodge it. You're trying to make believe—not perhaps to yourselves but ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James

... the opinion of Jack Nelson. "He's dead broke, but he wants to make believe that he's a ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott

... In its simplicity the drama is a familiar story retold to the eye by actors who "make believe" that they are the heroes of the action. In this elemental form the play is almost as old as humanity. Indeed, it seems to be a natural impulse of children to act a story which has given them pleasure; of primitive ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... Philosophy Percy Bysshe Shelley Song, "The moth's kiss, first" Robert Browning Summum Bonum Robert Browning The First Kiss Theodore Watts-Dunton To My Love John Godfrey Saxe To Lesbia John Godfrey Saxe Make Believe Alice Cary Kissing's No Sin Unknown To Anne William Maxwell Song, "There is many a love in the land, my love" Joaquin Miller Phyllis and Corydon ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... trouble to him to keep his balance, and when up like that he would twist his legs about, open them wide, put them forwards and backwards, and end by insulting me with his feet, so it seemed to me, for he would spar at me with them and make believe ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn

... three or four feet of water in our cistern, and Hank wasn't in scarcely up to his big hairy chest. So when Elmira says the cistern is full of fish, that woman opens the trap door and looks in. Hank thinks it's Elmira come to get him out. He allows he'll keep quiet in there and make believe he is drowned and give her a good scare and make her sorry fur him. But when the cistern door is opened, he hears a lot of clacking tongues all of a sudden like they was a hen convention on. He allows she has told some of the neighbours, ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis

... the one whom you wish to heal, then build a mental vision of him; see him in consciousness just as whole and perfect as if he was really radiant with health. Make believe that he is standing before you a perfect picture of physical perfection, work on your vision until you can produce and hold the most beautiful idealized picture of human beauty of flesh, form and character. Never forget to illumine your perfect thought-patient with ...
— Freedom Talks No. II • Julia Seton, M.D.

... us make believe that we've hoisted our sails on 'Mononday morn' and been in Noroway 'weeks but only twae,'" said our leading man; "and your time has come now," turning ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... Captain tried to make believe that the cause of these effects lay hidden in the pipe itself, and the way in which he looked into the bowl for it, and not finding it there, pretended to blow it out of the stem, was wonderfully ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... let alone Simon's son being there. It was all through his wanting to be a gentleman that Simon got into bad ways. Making friends with people who had money, he got to thinking he must have it, or must make believe he had it; so he spent all he had, and then—oh, dear!—he forged his father's name, and the farm had to be mortgaged to get him out of prison; and then he took to drinking, and went from bad to worse, and finally died in misery and wretchedness. Dear, dear! ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

... again after a while, "I won't say but this is a lark, if on'y you'll put that nonsense about 'Olmness out of yer mind. We can go down to the cottage an' make believe it's yer ancesteral 'ome—" ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... real folks. Do you suppose if—if I have to go to the—the orphans' home, there'd be anybody there that would be my relation? I didn't know but there might be another orphan there who didn't have anybody, same as me, and then we could make believe we was—was cousins or somethin'. That would be better ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln

... a year of sorrow Gridley!" he quivered indignantly. "I'll hang on, and make believe I'm meek as a lamb, but I'll spoil Gridley's record for this year! There was in olden times a chap who had a famous knack for getting square with people who used him the wrong way. I wish I could remember his name at ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock

... the worst of it. The man, the writer, over whom the irresistible desire to mock at himself, his work, his puppets and their fortunes has power, will never be a novelist. The novelist must "make believe very much"; he must be in earnest with his characters. But how to be in earnest, how to keep the note of disbelief and derision "out of the memorial"? Ah, there is the difficulty, but it is a difficulty of which many authors appear to be insensible. Perhaps they suffer ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang

... and with nothing to obstruct the view of the Shakespearian dome it mounted into, except a modest growth of hair above either ear. He was light upon his feet, and he advanced with a rhythmical step. Cornelia tried to make believe that she did not know who it was; she recoiled, but her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth, and she could not gainsay him when he demanded joyfully, "Why, Nie! Why, Nelie! Don't you remember me? Dickerson, J. B., with Gates & ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells

... must mix my love with death-dust, Lest the draught should make me mad; I must make believe at sorrow, Lest I ...
— Poems • William D. Howells

... us, and he went with it; and Coldwater, and our old house, and them as were up on the hill went with it, and we were alone on the water in the rain. But I said 'Joe,' over and over to myself, trying to make believe he was near. I sat there until late. The night was very dark, and I was wet; but the boat kept heaving up and down, and there was a noise underneath like some great beast trying to get out. I did not know what they had down ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various

... obdurate than a clown asked a favor when he has his mind made up! If I fall upon you I shall tear your eyes out! Do you fancy, then, Don Vanquished, Don Cudgeled, that I died for your sake? All that you have seen to-night has been make believe; I am not the woman to let the black of my nail suffer for such a camel, ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... the accident, she looks thirsty, with a thirst which only that particular cup of tea could have quenched. In no other way is she any trouble: indeed, she is a great dear, and has the face of a Madonna, as beautiful as an apocryphal gospel to look at and "make believe" in. ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous

... Mas'r Harry, I ain't afraid; but I am nearer to being so than ever I was in my life. 'Taint fear, only one of my knees will keep going shikery-shakery, and my teeth have took it into their heads to make believe it's cold, and they're tapping together like the lid of a kettle in boiling time. But ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn

... did didn't much matter. She was marvellously like the girl who "took a deep interest" and the rest of the formula. All things considered, it would be pleasant to make the acquaintance of Mrs. Landys-Haggert, and for a little time—only a very little time—to make believe that he was with Alice Chisane again. Every one is more or less mad on one point. Hannasyde's particular monomania was ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... of mind than he, cleverer at games and inventing "make believe," very strong, active, and sporting, she was the most charming, interesting, and attractive experience in his short but ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... coloring upon; color, varnish, cook, dress up, embroider; varnish right and puzzle wrong; exaggerate &c 549; blague[obs3]. invent, fabricate; trump up, get up; force, fake, hatch, concoct; romance &c (imagine) 515; cry "wolf!' dissemble, dissimulate; feign, assume, put on, pretend, make believe; play possum; play false, play a double game; coquet; act a part, play a part; affect &c. 855; simulate, pass off for; counterfeit, sham, make a show of; malinger; say the grapes are sour. cant, play the hypocrite, sham Abraham, faire pattes de velours, put ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... violent and altogether idiotical contortions of the face, that were very far from expressing what he intended. However, I knew what the poor fellow meant by it; so I smiled to him in return, and endeavoured to make believe that he was winking. ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne

... and lots of other things—just to make believe. Then they came. I heard them, but I didn't know that they were not mine by right till Mrs. ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling

... deliberate break with truth causes a real excitement which is often the birth pang of the imagination. More commonly this is seen in childish play, which owes a part of its charm to self-deception. Children make believe they are animals, doctors, ogres, play school, that they are dead, mimic all they see and hear. Idealising temperaments sometimes prompt children of three or four suddenly to assert that they saw a pig with five ears, apples on a ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... breaking, consisted, I should think, in this species of cunning. We were never secure. He could see or hear us nearly all the time. He was, to us, behind every stump, tree, bush and fence on the plantation. He carried this kind of trickery so far, that he would sometimes mount his horse, and make believe he was going to St. Michael's; and, in thirty minutes afterward, you might find his horse tied in the woods, and the snake-like Covey lying flat in the ditch, with his head lifted above its edge, or in a fence corner, watching every movement of the slaves! I have known him ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass

... sides and whirled around as he ran, and that he breathed out of the top of his head. When the fowls first heard of this, they were much interested, but after a while they used to walk away from her, or make believe that they saw Grasshoppers whom ...
— Among the Farmyard People • Clara Dillingham Pierson

... witnesses! He'll make believe it's a scientific trip. Remember, he's a professor of ethnology. That's how he puts it all over the British and goes where he pleases without ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... we all begin," said Tom Platt. "The boys they make believe all the time till they've cheated 'emselves into bein' men, an' so till they die—pretendin' an' pretendin'. I done it on the old Ohio, I know. Stood my first watch—harbor-watch—feelin' finer'n Farragut. Dan's full o' the same kind o' notions. See 'em ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling

... would believe it, saying they had only been off for a very short time and that he had tumbled the bed to make believe what he said of them was true. At the same time both admitted having had ...
— The Power of Mesmerism - A Highly Erotic Narrative of Voluptuous Facts and Fancies • Anonymous

... unreasonable persons are not lacking to point out that it is of the busman's variety. It is true that we are no longer face to face with the foe, but we—or rather, the authorities—make believe that we are. We wage mimic warfare in full marching order; we fire rifles and machine-guns upon improvised ranges; we perform hazardous feats with bombs and a dummy trench. More galling still, we are back in the region of squad-drill, physical ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)

... see anything of the kind," she retorted, confidently. "I should see nothing of the kind. You haven't acquired the right, young gentleman. On the stage Harry Thornhill may claim his privileges—or make believe; but off the stage ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black

... "make believe" the dollies talked, and this did just as well. They used to say just such things as the ladies did who called on Mrs. Green, and never left without being urged to stay longer, and also to call again; which they always ...
— Dolly and I - A Story for Little Folks • Oliver Optic

... I never did know. Somewhere out West, we thought. I used to make believe the letters came from Helena, or Butte, because that was where she heard from him last. He was always promising to come home—in the letters. That used to make her so much better," she explained naively. ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower

... you have desired that I should come to nothing, that my armies should be beaten, and that my enemies should triumph. You are not the only one to wish me evil; at Rome people think no better than elsewhere. The Pope is a holy man, whom they make believe whatever they please. They represent my demands to him under a false aspect, as Cardinal Consalvi has done, and then the good Pope is roused up to say that he will be killed rather than yield. Who thinks of killing him, bon Dieu? If he will not take the course I wish, I will certainly deprive ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

... exactly understand," Ruth said with a smile. "I am going to explain it to you. Mr. Pertell said I might. Now here is the story we are supposed to act out; and, mind you, it is only supposing—make believe, as ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope

... "It didn't make believe," said mamma. "I think it was dizzy. Birds sometimes are dizzy. But if you had not found it, it would ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various

... way of a dark night, that's all," said Mr. Macey, winking mysteriously, "and then make believe, if you like, as you didn't see lights i' the stables, nor hear the stamping o' the hosses, nor the cracking o' the whips, and howling, too, if it's tow'rt daybreak. "Cliff's Holiday" has been the name of it ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot

... they get first-class beef twice a week, good bread and all the fish they can catch. They don't have to begin work until broad daylight, and they lay off at dark. There is hardly one of them that hasn't got a psaltery, or a harp, or some other musical instrument. If they want to dress up and make believe they are Egyptians, I give them clothes. If one of them is killed on the work, or by a stray lion, or in a fight, I have him embalmed by my own embalmers and plant him like a man. If one of them breaks a leg or loses an arm or gets ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken

... in the man's voice that was not apple-skins, though he tried to make believe that it was. I knew a word about home would comfort him, so I went on with ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott

... us could be the prisoner, and the other the barrister who defends him. I'd better be the barrister, because I know more about English law than Selwyn does. And the furniture'll have to be the other counsel and the gentlemen of the jury. Sit over there, Charlie, near that railing, and we'll make believe it's the bar. The only trouble is the barrister will have no gown and ...
— The Children's Portion • Various

... catch the gleam of your skirt, mountain maid, brown Audrey! But now in these midsummer days it is a sleepy world, that cares not to go bustling up and down. I am alone in my house; I visit not nor am visited, and the days hang heavy. Let us make believe for a time that the mountains are all around us, that it was but yesterday we traveled together. It is only a little way from Fair View to the glebe house, from the glebe house to Fair View. I will see you often, little maid, and ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... that this imputed lover of Eleanor's was at any rate as much disliked by her as by any one of the family. Mr. Harding, however, was by no means sufficiently a man of the world to conceal the blunder he had made. He could not pretend that he had entertained no suspicion; he could not make believe that he had never joined the archdeacon in his surmises. He was greatly surprised, and gratified beyond measure, and he could not help showing ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... us build a fort; and we will call that ship away out there, an enemy's vessel, and make believe we are firing great cannon ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth



Words linked to "Make believe" :   make, pretend, sham, affect, act, dissemble, represent, make-believe, feign, go through the motions



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com