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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The bottom three stars can then be used to point the way to the Andromeda galaxy, by following an imaginary line from the 'base' of the stellar triangle up through the bright star Shedar and beyond, as shown in the finder map above.—
Anthony Wood,
Space.com,
28 Jan. 2026
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In demonstrating the technology to CalMatters, using an imaginary 56-year-old female patient who complained of trouble breathing, Scope asked several follow-up questions to drill down on her symptoms.—
Cal Matters,
Mercury News,
28 Jan. 2026
Adjective
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This could even include being part of a role-play activity that is based on their favorite storyline, a nostalgic scene or even a fictional world.—
Ramsey Qubein,
Forbes.com,
30 Jan. 2026
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Featuring Tim McGraw, Eric Church, and Morgan Wallen, the song finds each artist inhabiting a specific member of the landowning (fictional) McArthur family.—
Joseph Hudak,
Rolling Stone,
30 Jan. 2026
Adjective
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Corridors are bedecked in vivid wallpaper with oversized flora and animals, real and mythical, and the hotel’s art collection that meets your eye around every corner is a go-for-broke assemblage of everything from old-world oils to ambitious mixed media and 20th-century American photography.—
Arati Menon,
Condé Nast Traveler,
30 Jan. 2026
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Buddhist Symbolism And Pop-Culture Surprises Even the walk to the temple’s main hall, surrounded by a watery moat, is a mythical spectacle.—
Vicky Smith,
Forbes.com,
30 Jan. 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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Del Col’s imagined protagonist is Pierre, a French bakery assistant who learns Hitler is his biological father.—
Rosemary Counter,
Vanity Fair,
19 Jan. 2026
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Taken together, the books on this list show narrators real and imagined grappling with some of life’s greatest challenges, and nevertheless surviving—as timely and valuable a message as readers can ask for.—
Lucy Feldman,
Time,
9 Dec. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Phantasmal.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/phantasmal. Accessed 1 Feb. 2026.
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