Meaning & use
disillusionment
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Meaning
noununcountable
The sad, flat feeling you have when you find out that something or someone you admired or believed in is not as good as you thought.
Grammar: Usually uncountable and followed by with: disillusionment with politics.
Patterns
- disillusionment with something
- a sense of disillusionment
- disillusionment among someone
Her disillusionment with the company grew as she saw how managers treated honest mistakes.
Many young voters expressed deep disillusionment after the promised reforms never arrived.
There was a note of disillusionment in his letters from the front, so different from his excited early ones.
Common combinations
- growing disillusionment
- Growing disillusionment among teachers led many to leave the profession.
- deep disillusionment
- The film captures the deep disillusionment of a generation that expected a better future.
- disillusionment with politics
- Low turnout reflects widespread disillusionment with politics.
- a sense of disillusionment
- After the tour she felt a sense of disillusionment about life in the big city.
- lead to disillusionment
- Unrealistic promises in the advert can only lead to disillusionment.
- express disillusionment
- The author expressed disillusionment with the literary world in her final interview.
Synonyms and how they differ
- disenchantment
- Disenchantment is almost interchangeable, but it feels slightly more poetic, as if a magic spell had broken.
- disappointment
- Disappointment is much broader and can follow any unmet hope, while disillusionment needs a belief that has been shown to be false.
- disaffection
- Disaffection stresses loss of loyalty or support toward a group or leader, rather than a private feeling of let-down.
- cynicism
- Cynicism is the settled attitude that can result from disillusionment; it means expecting the worst, not just feeling let down.
Opposites
Word family
- disillusion verb
- to make someone realize that something they believed is not true
- disillusioned adjective
- feeling let down because a belief has been shown to be false
- illusion noun
- a false idea or belief
- disillusioning adjective
- causing someone to lose their hopeful beliefs
Commonly confused: disillusionment or delusion?
disillusionment vs delusion
A delusion is a false belief that someone holds despite clear evidence; disillusionment is what follows when such a belief finally breaks.
Practice
After years of broken promises, many citizens felt deep disillusionment ___ the government.
Choose one answer.
Disillusionment is normally followed by with when naming the thing that let you down. The other options are not standard patterns.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “disillusionment”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.