phantasmagoric

variants or phantasmagorical
Definition of phantasmagoricnext

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 action is punctuated by flash-frame collages that bring earlier and later observations together in a tumble of associations and hint at the drama’s mystical, phantasmagorical essence. Richard Brody, New Yorker, 6 Feb. 2026 Today, the public district collection comprises some 35 large-scale murals, sculptures and installations, including the phantasmagoric exterior of its Museum Garage. Andres Viglucci, Miami Herald, 30 Nov. 2025 The Land of Spooks is a phantasmagorical blend of twisting gothic spires, impossible land formations, and disconcerting expressionist proportions. Kambole Campbell, IndieWire, 4 Nov. 2025 As the two keepers' accelerating madness batters their already uneasy relationship, the film becomes a phantasmagorical endurance test, with the two antagonistic leads hurling themselves against their tight confinement. Dennis Perkins, Entertainment Weekly, 31 Oct. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for phantasmagoric
Adjective
  • Bradlow and Crowley conceded that agents can be error-prone, even hallucinatory, and on a mass scale, that could lead to widespread errors.
    Nick Lichtenberg, Fortune, 26 Mar. 2026
  • Such hallucinatory citations are, according to judges and lawyers, troubling at a variety of levels, not the least of which is their threat to the integrity of the judicial system.
    Edmund H. Mahony, Hartford Courant, 1 Mar. 2026
Adjective
  • And thus began a most surreal standoff.
    Rich Schapiro, NBC news, 3 Apr. 2026
  • The Norwegian filmmaker’s last effort was Dream Scenario, a surreal comedy that never quite gelled.
    David Sims, The Atlantic, 3 Apr. 2026
Adjective
  • Physicists treat the volume of the black hole as illusory, like a hologram.
    Shalma Wegsman, Quanta Magazine, 30 Mar. 2026
  • If the recent leftward shift is sustained, or the earlier shift to the right was illusory, the effects on the politics of 2026 could be large, potentially putting control of Congress in the hands of Latino voters.
    Gary M. Segura, The Conversation, 23 Mar. 2026
Adjective
  • Engendered by the ubiquity of stable and robust WiFi and the incredible power of the smartphone’s system-on-a-chip design, the smart everything era demonstrates the full transfer of the smartness imaginary.
    Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 2 Apr. 2026
  • Following Christopher Columbus’ first voyage, the rulers of Portugal and Spain, by the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), partitioned the non-Christian world between them by an imaginary line in the Atlantic, 370 leagues (about 1,300 miles) west of the Cape Verde Islands.
    Encyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopedia Britannica, 2 Apr. 2026
Adjective
  • The two bonded over Crane’s adoration of the 1930s fictional detective Nero Wolfe and the formative subject of their fathers.
    Annie Vainshtein, San Francisco Chronicle, 3 Apr. 2026
  • Getting cleared of a gruesome crime has boosted his social cache in his upper-class neighborhood of Westmont Village, a fictional New York suburb.
    Aramide Tinubu, Variety, 3 Apr. 2026
Adjective
  • Beyond that, all apparent structures are merely phantasmal.
    Big Think, Big Think, 27 Oct. 2025
Adjective
  • One requires election records to be maintained for 22 months, while the other prohibits procuring, casting or tabulating false, fictitious or fraudulent ballots.
    CBS News, CBS News, 29 Mar. 2026
  • Increasingly, human resources departments noticed that applicants used the résumé to tell white lies, and even bigger fibs, listing fictitious degrees, fake promotions and other embellishments.
    Stephen Mihm, Twin Cities, 29 Mar. 2026
Adjective
  • The album’s more frenetic tracks lean further toward the uncanny, developing chimeric grooves that brim with unresolved tension.
    Maxie Younger, Pitchfork, 27 Mar. 2026
  • Our ability to ignore, repress, and deny is matched only by our ability to believe the unbelievable and to give chimeric notions the power to found religions, nations, and institutions.
    Robert Pogue Harrison, The New York Review of Books, 19 Mar. 2026

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Cite this Entry

“Phantasmagoric.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/phantasmagoric. Accessed 10 Apr. 2026.

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