surreal

adjective sur·re·al \ sə-ˈrē(-ə)l also -ˈrā-əl \

|Updated on: 10 Jul 2018

Examples: surreal in a Sentence

Editor's Note: Did You Know?

Definition of surreal

1 : marked by the intense irrational reality of a dream; also : unbelievable, fantastic

surreal sums of money

2 : surrealistic

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surreality

play \(ˌ)sə-rē-ˈa-lə-tē\ noun

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surreally

adverb

See surreal defined for English-language learners

Examples of surreal in a Sentence

Despite all the hassle, though, I would not want an ordinary name. I know of one other person in the world who shares my name, first and last. I know nothing about her except that she lived in New York at the same time I did, and that she and I subscribed to a few of the same publications. I found myself in the surreal position of having to explain to circulation departments that I was, in fact, me, and not that other version of me on the West Side. —Johnna Kaplan, Newsweek, 3 Mar. 2008
Films aren't just a part of life for people in India; they are a way of life. The over-the-top, surreal dance numbers in nearly every Bollywood film often make no sense in relation to the story, but no one seems to be complaining. —Shashank Samant, The Out Traveler, May/June 2005
The movie achieves a truly rare mix of the absurd, the surreal, and the heartfelt. Improbably, its wacked-out premise and structural hilarity concoct a melancholy meditation on love, loss, and memory, while delivering a message—subversive to our culture's therapeutic optimism—about the tragedy of healing. —Rand Richards Cooper, Commonweal, 23 Apr. 2004
The whole thing was completely surreal.

Recent Examples of surreal from the Web

The boxes have been covered with such busy colors and patterns that the ensemble seems like a rather surreal gifting occasion.

— mike giuliano, Howard County Times, "Artist gets metaphysical at Columbia Art Center," 6 July 2018
The surreal, enjoyably weird video for the song is out today — watch below: The video is directed by Christopher Good, and was shot over five days in Kansas City.

— allison p. davis, The Cut, "Mitski’s New Video for ‘Nobody’ Makes Heartbreak Look Fun," 26 June 2018
The scene that unfolded over the next three hours — including the woman running half naked in a bridesmaid dress wielding a decorative Japanese katana sword — was not only surreal, but also tragic.

— eric adler and glenn e. rice, kansascity, "‘KCPD murdered my only daughter,’ says mother of woman who wielded decorative sword," 15 June 2018
The paintings are clever, if antiseptic: surreal, graphic, flat, intentionally made in styles that echo technical illustration.

— cate mcquaid, BostonGlobe.com, "At the ICA, Kevin Beasley alchemizes dark histories," 23 May 2018
But the drama surrounding his surreal, yet unsurprising, release from the Dallas Cowboys last Friday continues to rage inside and outside the team's headquarters at the Star in Frisco.

— clarence e. hill jr., star-telegram, "Earl Thomas, draft and other possible Cowboys spinoffs from Dez Bryant release | Fort Worth Star-Telegram," 16 Apr. 2018
On Wednesday, students like Jean came back to a place both familiar and surreal, with armed guards, TV trucks and piles of flowers and homemade memorials outside.

— the washington post, NOLA.com, "Two weeks after Valentine's Day massacre, students return to class at Florida high school," 28 Feb. 2018
MSU Athletic Communications, Lansing State Journal Ask Jaren Jackson Jr. about the NBA draft process, and the former Michigan State freshman forward will say it’s surreal.

— orion sang, Detroit Free Press, "NBA draft: Spartans' Jaren Jackson Jr. near end of 'surreal' process," 21 June 2018
Last year's The Rise and Fall of the D.O.D.O., co-written with Nicole Gilland, told the tale of a surreal above-top-secret DARPA-like organization dabbling in metaphysics and magic.

— john wenz, Popular Mechanics, "How Neal Stephenson Got Book Ideas by Moonlighting at Blue Origin," 19 June 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'surreal.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Did You Know?

In 1924 a group of European poets, painters, and filmmakers founded a movement that they called Surrealism. Their central idea was that the unconscious mind (a concept Sigmund Freud had recently made famous) was the source of all imagination, and that art should try to express its contents. The unconscious, they believed, revealed itself most clearly in dreams. The Surrealist painters included René Magritte, Joan Miró, and Salvador Dalí, whose "limp watches" painting became the best-known Surrealist image of all. Since those years, we've used surreal to describe all kinds of situations that strike us as dreamlike. And even though the Surrealist movement ended long ago, surrealism now seems to be everywhere—not just in painting, literature, and movies but also in blogs, video games, and graphic novels.