1
as in surreal
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2
as in incomprehensible
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of Kafkaesque
Those who value and respect America but couldn’t find their way through the Kafkaesque immigration system deserve a chance to rectify their situation.
—
Agustina Vergara Cid,
Oc Register,
10 Aug. 2025
In a Kafkaesque twist, Trump’s chart assigns Eswatini the lowest possible (10 percent) reciprocal tariff, despite the fact the nation applies the same external tariffs as Lesotho.
—
Robert Goulder,
Forbes.com,
28 July 2025
To be fair, dealing with any healthcare bureaucracy in America is sure to be frustrating and annoying, and will most likely turn into a Kafkaesque nightmare.
—
Emily Cegielski,
Flow Space,
27 June 2025
Obtaining a permit to fly a drone in Nepal as a foreigner was a somewhat Kafkaesque exercise in patience.
—
Ben Ayers,
Outside Online,
6 May 2025
These are intentional Kafkaesque problems that the Trump Administration is creating.
—
Grace Byron,
New Yorker,
29 Apr. 2025
No one wants to have their family vacation turned into some Kafkaesque nightmare at the hands of ICE agents emboldened by the country's general climate of incipient fascism.
—
Matt Robison,
MSNBC Newsweek,
16 Apr. 2025
That standard was used to suppress the speech of faculty, such as Northwestern professor Laura Kipnis, who in a Kafkaesque turn was the subject of a legal complaint by students under Title IX for writing an op-ed column criticizing the Obama view of Title IX.
—
The Editors,
National Review,
16 Apr. 2025
Agustina Vergara Cid,
Oc Register,
10 Aug. 2025
In a Kafkaesque twist, Trump’s chart assigns Eswatini the lowest possible (10 percent) reciprocal tariff, despite the fact the nation applies the same external tariffs as Lesotho.
—
Robert Goulder,
Forbes.com,
28 July 2025
To be fair, dealing with any healthcare bureaucracy in America is sure to be frustrating and annoying, and will most likely turn into a Kafkaesque nightmare.
—
Emily Cegielski,
Flow Space,
27 June 2025
Obtaining a permit to fly a drone in Nepal as a foreigner was a somewhat Kafkaesque exercise in patience.
—
Ben Ayers,
Outside Online,
6 May 2025
These are intentional Kafkaesque problems that the Trump Administration is creating.
—
Grace Byron,
New Yorker,
29 Apr. 2025
No one wants to have their family vacation turned into some Kafkaesque nightmare at the hands of ICE agents emboldened by the country's general climate of incipient fascism.
—
Matt Robison,
MSNBC Newsweek,
16 Apr. 2025
That standard was used to suppress the speech of faculty, such as Northwestern professor Laura Kipnis, who in a Kafkaesque turn was the subject of a legal complaint by students under Title IX for writing an op-ed column criticizing the Obama view of Title IX.
—
The Editors,
National Review,
16 Apr. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for Kafkaesque
Adjective
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Dumont, whose professional background is in owning and operating casinos, is gambling that his franchise can use a 34-year-old guard who is coming off another major injury whose forte is surreal quickness and dribble-drive penetration as the primary complement to Cooper Flagg.
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Grief mangles cognition and memory in ways that can make even banal tasks feel surreal, if not impossible.
Adjective
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There have been times when acts of atrocity have been going on — and gosh, some of those things are incomprehensible — yet humanity has found a way.
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Being joyful there — in the Dominican Republic, where small shacks and houses pieced together by junkyard scraps sometimes hold families with over a dozen members — seems incomprehensible.
Adjective
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What Trump is doing is unusual.
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Heat domes are not unusual, but the temperatures in this one have been.
Adjective
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The organization said Kirbiyik, who spent 10 years alongside Deniz, had not noticed any signs of illness and was shocked by his sudden and inexplicable death.
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This run of the 101 still has enough hipster plant shops, low-slung thrift spot and inexplicable little storefronts (Child of Wild?
Adjective
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Economist Hyman Minsky spent his career explaining how irrational behavior produces fragility and instability in capitalist systems.
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McClanahan has been close enough to his usual production, but without an irrational need for perfection.
Adjective
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To some, the Galatasaray forward’s selection in the starting line-up is unfathomable and is now being used to portray Nagelsmann as stubborn or unwilling to react to performances.
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The money the Hornets still owed Ball was almost unfathomable in normal circles, but not in the NBA’s alternate universe.
Adjective
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Informal Beyblade battles are popping up in strangest of places, with players huddling in parks, gyms and shopping malls.
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The falseness of the medium, though, jibed with the falseness of most attempts, throughout American history, to make sense of this enormous, strange man.
Adjective
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The world premiere on Sunday – in the presence of Illumination boss Chris Meledandri and director Pierre Coffin, who is also the origin of the minions’ unintelligible chatter – kicks off one of the biggest Annecy Film Festival’s yet.
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The adversaries made for a striking scene, exchanging insults in mutually unintelligible languages in the dead of night.
Cite this Entry
“Kafkaesque.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/Kafkaesque. Accessed 30 Jun. 2026.
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