optical illusion

1. 1.

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

   Broaderoptical phenomenon

   Narrowerapparent motionmirage

Questions about optical illusion

What does optical illusion mean?

optical illusion means "an optical phenomenon that results in a false or deceptive visual impression".

Is optical illusion a common word?

optical illusion is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.