phantasmagoric

variants or phantasmagorical

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for phantasmagoric
Adjective
  • In Spark, the effect is hallucinatory, resulting in a type of hyperreality that, to me, constitutes an interesting representation of the intellectual experience of femininity.
    Rachel Cusk, New Yorker, 24 Aug. 2025
  • Alternating between 2004 and the early 1980s, evoked in hallucinatory, grainy flashbacks, Romería achingly dramatizes the processes of creating new memories and holding onto fleeting ones.
    Jill Goldsmith, Deadline, 5 Aug. 2025
Adjective
  • Mad Max is set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland that is at once striking and surreal.
    Rachel Cormack, Robb Report, 3 Sep. 2025
  • There was a surreal end to the race, with Vingegaard and Pidcock unsure of where exactly the new finish line was.
    CNN Money, CNN Money, 3 Sep. 2025
Adjective
  • In conclusion, several factors, starting from the extent of our exposure to horoscopes to illusory correlation, can play a role in your astrology beliefs, but those are not necessarily the same factors that influence the strength of your relationship, as the aforementioned study shows.
    Mark Travers, Forbes.com, 26 Aug. 2025
  • Auctions are built on an illusory symmetry of hope.
    Sam Knight, New Yorker, 25 Aug. 2025
Adjective
  • Steve Young lifts his arm, holding an imaginary football, preparing to throw.
    Seth Wickersham, The Atlantic, 8 Sep. 2025
  • Moreover, her five-letter titles refer to satellite navigation waypoints and fixes for aircraft flying in clouds or at night, that offer passage to imaginary locations defined by the interception of magnetic vectors drawn from the earth’s poles.
    Natasha Gural, Forbes.com, 8 Sep. 2025
Adjective
  • Jessica Simpson, Ashlee Simpson, and Ciara, along with Netflix's KPop Demon Hunters stars EJAE, REI AMI and Audrey Nuna, who make up the fictional group Huntr/x will serve as presenters throughout the evening.
    Marina Watts, PEOPLE, 7 Sep. 2025
  • Binge the autumn episodes or watch the whole thing again for the millionth time to enjoy a fictional fall getaway.
    Toni Fitzgerald, Forbes.com, 6 Sep. 2025
Adjective
  • As Newton soon learned, there is a long runway between playing a fictitious, Regency-era ladies’ man and becoming one of the most recognizable designers in pop culture.
    José Criales-Unzueta, Vogue, 5 Sep. 2025
  • The film is set in New Mexico, in the fictitious title town—population of two thousand four hundred and thirty-five, according to a road sign—where the election year sees the mayor also up for reëlection.
    Richard Brody, New Yorker, 5 Sep. 2025
Adjective
  • Projections of economic gains from major sporting events are typically optimistic, euphoric, chimerical or conjectural.
    Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 19 June 2025
  • In spite of everything, the setting continues to compel me, as does the puzzle of Flores’s fiction, which frames the South Texas border region as a territory both physical and chimerical.
    David L. Ulin, The Atlantic, 21 Feb. 2025
Adjective
  • This isn’t callousness or delusive optimism but, rather, a rebellion against the suffocating expectation that the elderly have foreclosed the possibility of joy.
    Hillary Kelly, The New Yorker, 21 Feb. 2024
  • To separate art from its historical framework is futile, and to reject it in an effort to censor past violence is a delusive act of virtue signaling.
    WSJ, WSJ, 5 July 2022
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

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Cite this Entry

“Phantasmagoric.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/phantasmagoric. Accessed 9 Sep. 2025.

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