1
as in surreal
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2
as in incomprehensible
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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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Over the last few months, there’s been a surge of similar and even more surreal edits.—
Kieran Press-Reynolds,
Pitchfork,
24 Oct. 2025
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This aerial perspective provides a surreal view of the otherworldly environment.—
Gwen Nicol,
Travel + Leisure,
22 Oct. 2025
Adjective
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That would be an almost incomprehensible outcome, given that Mendoza — after graduating from Miami’s Columbus High School — had just one scholarship offer from a major-conference school, and that came from Cal just one day before National Signing Day.—
Walter Villa,
Miami Herald,
22 Oct. 2025
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In the face of that, Keaton’s off- and sometimes on-duty style represented limitless possibilities, and a previously incomprehensible kind of freedom.—
Stephanie Zacharek,
Time,
12 Oct. 2025
Adjective
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Bessent, who specialized in foreign exchange in a decades-long hedge fund career, organized a $20 billion foreign-exchange swap with Argentina’s central bank earlier this month — an unusual structure that bypassed the US Federal Reserve, which is typically the lead party in such arrangements.—
Daniel Flatley,
Fortune,
27 Oct. 2025
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Tucked away in a couple of buildings in Old Town are rows upon rows of colorful artwork, which is not especially unusual for the state historic park.—
Lori Weisberg,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
26 Oct. 2025
Adjective
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At the beginning of the episode, Ron is still paranoid following that inexplicable run-in with the apparent Tecca enforcer.—
Ben Rosenstock,
Vulture,
20 Oct. 2025
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Then came inexplicable defeats at UCLA and against Northwestern at home.—
Scott Dochterman,
New York Times,
19 Oct. 2025
Adjective
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The study, published on the research platform arXiv, found that once the models were allowed to vary their bets and set their own targets, irrational behavior surged — and bankruptcy became a common outcome.—
Jesus Mesa,
MSNBC Newsweek,
22 Oct. 2025
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Poetry brings hope, not an irrational optimism or wishful thinking, but a positive orientation to the future, of what a better, healthier future would look like.—
K.J.S. “Sunny” Anand,
Time,
15 Oct. 2025
Adjective
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Advisers were on hand to teach them the nuances of the Situation Room and the importance of maintaining calm under unfathomable stress.—
Patrick Ryan,
USA Today,
21 Oct. 2025
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That may sound unfathomable to any non-comic reader who watched Steven Yeun's Mark Grayson get bludgeoned, maimed, and nearly disemboweled (sorry, Atom Eve) in an episode-long, cities-spanning fight with Thragg's berzerker warrior, Conquest (Jeffrey Dean Morgan).—
Nick Romano,
Entertainment Weekly,
10 Oct. 2025
Adjective
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Word also, unfortunately, retains some seemingly illogical features from versions that date back several decades.—
PC Magazine,
PC Magazine,
18 Oct. 2025
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The film had transformed from the messy, illogical version I’d first seen into a hilarious, shrewd, contemplative work of art.—
Susan Orlean,
New Yorker,
11 Oct. 2025
Adjective
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The vendor said some other things that were unintelligible because of the overlap between her live speech and the lagging translation.—
Matteo Wong,
The Atlantic,
16 Oct. 2025
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But in an Akan language, the notion that an object could exist as a bare substrate, stripped of properties—say, the idea of a stone, with its weight, texture, and color subtracted—is basically unintelligible; the metaphysical split between a thing and its properties isn’t naturally expressible.—
Lula Konner,
The New York Review of Books,
4 Oct. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Kafkaesque.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/Kafkaesque. Accessed 29 Oct. 2025.
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