phantasmagoric

variants or phantasmagorical

Example Sentences

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.
Recent Examples of phantasmagoric The new film tries to connect its phantasmagorical elements to regular middle-class lives, but the attempt serves both aspects poorly. Richard Brody, New Yorker, 18 Sep. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for phantasmagoric
Adjective
  • Tipping takes the notion of a spiral in football and runs with it, creating some of the film’s most hallucinatory effects in the process.
    Jim Hemphill, IndieWire, 22 Sep. 2025
  • Campaigns can be hallucinatory affairs, and this one was full of bizarre moments.
    Chris Megerian, Fortune, 19 Sep. 2025
Adjective
  • Her writing is surreal and inventive, always.
    Bryan West, USA Today, 3 Oct. 2025
  • Earlier this week, Anderson made his womenswear debut at Dior, where footwear codes turned equally surreal — from oversized rosette mules to feather-like embellishments.
    Maggie Clancy, Footwear News, 3 Oct. 2025
Adjective
  • Yet these successes were at best partial, and perhaps illusory.
    JENNIFER KAVANAGH, Foreign Affairs, 30 Sep. 2025
  • Everyone has their own analogy to describe Labour’s illusory power.
    Sam Knight, New Yorker, 21 Sep. 2025
Adjective
  • While their mother is not in the picture, Judy seeks guidance from her boss, Alyson (Megan Mullally), and her imaginary friend, Alanis Morissette (voicing herself), who appears to her in the Northern Lights.
    Nellie Andreeva, Deadline, 3 Oct. 2025
  • The opportunities for newcomers to be in larger meetings may have been more imaginary than real.
    Diane Brady, Fortune, 2 Oct. 2025
Adjective
  • The winning formula had viewers returning to the show's fictional Louisiana town long after Edward and Bella had their happily ever after.
    Matt Cabral, Entertainment Weekly, 4 Oct. 2025
  • Does their fictional status matter?
    Dipangkar Dutta, The Conversation, 3 Oct. 2025
Adjective
  • Garcia-Hernandez allegedly has convictions for giving fictitious information, evading arrest, driving while intoxicated and fleeing police.
    Lauren Villagran, USA Today, 26 Sep. 2025
  • Supervisors Janet Nguyen and Don Wagner raised concerns at the board’s Tuesday meeting about fictitious registrations following recent news of a dog that was registered to vote in two recent state elections and a lawsuit by the federal government over noncitizen voter records.
    Claire Wang, Oc Register, 24 Sep. 2025
Adjective
  • Advertisement But this victory proved chimerical.
    Time, Time, 12 Sep. 2025
  • Projections of economic gains from major sporting events are typically optimistic, euphoric, chimerical or conjectural.
    Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 19 June 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

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Cite this Entry

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

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