phantasmagoric

variants or phantasmagorical

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for phantasmagoric
Adjective
  • As Almeyda makes her journey towards this elusive mecca, both the idea of Palmares and Almeyda’s journey toward it feel like hallucinatory visions: Vibrantly conjured, indeed mythic in intention and impact.
    Irenosen Okojie July 11, Literary Hub, 11 July 2025
  • But the sound and lighting effects get rather heavy-handed during Josh’s hallucinatory meltdowns.
    Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 28 June 2025
Adjective
  • The fallout was immediate, surreal, and more than a little revealing.
    Jesse Edwards, MSNBC Newsweek, 11 July 2025
  • Naomi Watts broke out with a surreal leading turn in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive (2001).
    EW.com, EW.com, 11 July 2025
Adjective
  • For years, the only mechanisms available for relief from a federal firearms disability were the all but impossible pardon, seemingly illusory expungement that did not satisfy federal requirements, or an expensive and uncertain route of litigation.
    Mandy Taheri Hannah Parry, MSNBC Newsweek, 18 July 2025
  • The Aries moon inspires you while also casting an illusory haze.
    USA TODAY, USA Today, 19 June 2025
Adjective
  • The soundtrack shifts toward lighter indie rock and away from brain-numbing redundancies, while the story treats those imaginary genre sketches like an accidental off-ramp left in the rearview.
    Ben Travers, IndieWire, 10 July 2025
  • The Royal Observatory Greenwich is home to Greenwich Mean Time and the Prime Meridian, an imaginary line of longitude, designated as 0 degrees that runs from the North Pole to the South Pole.
    Jamie Carter, Forbes.com, 10 July 2025
Adjective
  • The story centers around a die-hard musical theater fan who plays his favorite (fictional) 1920s musical on his record player, bringing the show to life within his apartment.
    Rebecca Rubin, Variety, 14 July 2025
  • The employees of Dunder Mifflin Paper Co.'s Scranton, Pennsylvania, office were filmed for nine seasons by a fictional documentary crew, a plot point that became extremely important in the series' final season.
    Kelly Lawler, USA Today, 12 July 2025
Adjective
  • Further blurring fact from fiction is this latest approach of trying to capitalize on a TikTok viral moment by having a fictitious creator recite the words of a real creator.
    Shannon Bond, NPR, 10 July 2025
  • Senegal just ditched its plans for the singer’s multibillion-dollar smart city in the country, reminiscent of Marvel’s fictitious nation in its Black Panther franchise.
    Nicole Hoey, Robb Report, 10 July 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 23 Jul. 2025.

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