as in imaginary
not real and existing only in the imagination
phantasmal fears that have prevented her from living a normal life
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Recent Examples of phantasmal
Beyond that, all apparent structures are merely phantasmal.
—
Big Think, 27 Oct. 2025
Big Think, 27 Oct. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for phantasmal
Adjective
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Finally, the researchers did another version of the original test but used imaginary grapes instead of juice, with similar results.—
Evan Bush,
NBC news,
5 Feb. 2026
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Unfortunately, the new love in your life may be imaginary and only after your bank account.—
C. A. Bridges,
Florida Times-Union,
4 Feb. 2026
Adjective
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The best of all sports-movie subgenres, football films have given us great characters – real and fictional – and a bunch of awesome cinematic moments in everything from screwball comedies to real-life narratives.—
Brian Truitt,
USA Today,
6 Feb. 2026
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The overall look has drawn comparisons to a fictional stealth aircraft rather than a conventional Navy jet.—
Sujita Sinha,
Interesting Engineering,
5 Feb. 2026
Adjective
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Indeed, Orient Express is perhaps the most mythic name in the travel world.—
Adam Erace,
Travel + Leisure,
6 Feb. 2026
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What begins as paranormal record-keeping gradually reveals a mythic tale centered on people who, fittingly, were mostly writers.—
Shannon Taggart,
Artforum,
1 Feb. 2026
Adjective
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Comulate also invented a fictitious insurance agent named Jordan Bates, who purported to work for PBC and who interacted with Applied Systems salespeople through email (with a Phoenix Benefits email domain) to create a customer account on Applied’s Epic.—
John Hyatt,
Forbes.com,
30 Jan. 2026
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In a comparable case in the United States in 2023, a federal judge imposed $5,000 fines on two lawyers and a law firm after ChatGPT was blamed for their submission of fictitious legal research in an aviation injury claim.—
CBS News,
CBS News,
27 Jan. 2026
Adjective
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Peter [Merry] likes to use is that, when a caterpillar is becoming a butterfly, new ‘imaginal cells’ emerge.—
Big Think,
Big Think,
7 Aug. 2025
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With one technique, for example—called imaginal exposure—you might be asked to visualize the process of going to the airport, boarding the plane, and experiencing a bad bout of turbulence.—
Angela Haupt,
TIME,
10 May 2024
Adjective
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The experiments together suggest that Kanzi was able to distinguish an imagined scenario from the present reality and keep both in mind.—
Evan Bush,
NBC news,
5 Feb. 2026
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So, the transactional world is constantly pushing us out of the present and redirecting us to an imagined future.—
Bill Burnett,
Big Think,
5 Feb. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Phantasmal.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/phantasmal. Accessed 13 Feb. 2026.
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