as in imaginary
not real and existing only in the imagination
had spent a restless night during which he was visited by a series of phantasmic figures
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Recent Examples of phantasmic
Standing to the right, the viewer perceives this phantasmic figure underneath their reflection, a disturbing Other, a double.
—
James Meyer, Artforum, 1 Jan. 2026
James Meyer, Artforum, 1 Jan. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for phantasmic
Adjective
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And so the super, super devoted fans really do know each other and really are jockeying with each other for position in a way that feels both real and imaginary.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
9 Apr. 2026
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No borders and a thin blue line Viewing the Earth from space, White highlights, drives home that the borders that mark our maps are largely imaginary.—
Jackie Wattles,
CNN Money,
8 Apr. 2026
Adjective
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Beyond the family drama, the play also expands into something mythic — that they are all connected not only across generations, but through a deeper ancestral line tied to an African king (Chat Atkins plays both early ancestors, Peter and the King).—
Amy Reyes,
Miami Herald,
16 Apr. 2026
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The truly mythic figures are the ones with wide-reaching influence—teaching other cooks, breaking new ground, and pushing the regional traditions forward.—
Robert F. Moss,
Southern Living,
16 Apr. 2026
Adjective
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Gemmill echoed the sentiment, emphasizing that the priority is maintaining the realism of the show, which centers on a fictional hospital in Pittsburgh.—
Tribune News Service,
Baltimore Sun,
17 Apr. 2026
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Then again, an especially good fictional song can come to feel more real than its story of origin.—
Mitch Therieau,
New Yorker,
17 Apr. 2026
Adjective
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Investigators allege Gonzalez wrote checks to herself from HOA accounts over an extended period and concealed the thefts by creating fictitious invoices and false ledger entries.—
Sarah Rumpf-Whitten,
FOXNews.com,
8 Apr. 2026
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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
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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Instead of small neighborhood stores with limited inventory, Marcus and Blank imagined warehouse-sized spaces filled with everything homeowners or contractors might need — from lumber and drywall to appliances and lighting.—
Alexandria Mansfield,
USA Today,
15 Apr. 2026
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Piech’s experience suggests that Sora videos could activate spatial memory, meaning that Sora videos also tripped up the brain’s more fundamental systems for sorting real from imagined.—
Tim Requarth,
Longreads,
9 Apr. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Phantasmic.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/phantasmic. Accessed 19 Apr. 2026.
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