Phrase guide
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.
No pronunciation record was provided for this word.
noun
The false belief that one is adequate; the belief that one is doing a competent job when one is actually incompetent.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: plural-normally
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
History
Coined by American writer and Broadway theater critic Walter Kerr in 1951 in a review in New York Herald Tribune review of a Broadway play called Buy Me Blue Ribbons (in reference to star Jay Robinson). An ironic variation of delusion of grandeur.
