smoke and mirrors
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“To me, he’s the hero of that movie, not the villain, because he was trying to take something that was always smoke and mirrors and turn it into something magical and real,” he says.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 4, 2026
"Neuralink is currently just smoke and mirrors, with a lot of hype," Herve Chneiweiss, a neurologist and expert in ethics at France's research organisation INSERM, told AFP.
From Barron's • Nov. 12, 2025
The pay package is replete with smoke and mirrors, its benchmarks painstakingly tweaked to make them much more achievable than they appear on the surface.
From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 16, 2025
The film’s unconventional narrative construction and big, undeniable centerpiece dance sequence are little more than smoke and mirrors, distracting us from realizing that Flanagan’s script doesn’t have anything new or practical to say.
From Salon • Jun. 15, 2025
But maybe being able to say “I love you” was just smoke and mirrors compared to having a living being under your fingers.
From "Endangered" by Eliot Schrefer
