as in irrational
very strange or unusual; having the quality of a dream
a surreal atmosphere at the festival The whole situation was completely surreal.
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Recent Examples of surreal
Incredibly, incredibly surreal.
—
Antonia Blyth, Deadline, 20 Oct. 2025
There was one moment that was very surreal.
—Hannah Sacks, PEOPLE, 20 Oct. 2025
The movie becomes more surreal, and more nerve-wracking, as Linda spirals, making worse and worse decisions.
—Bill Goodykoontz, AZCentral.com, 18 Oct. 2025
How else to explain Reeves’s appearance in this stylish, empty, increasingly surreal psychological thriller from Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn?
—Tim Grierson, Vulture, 18 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for surreal
Antonia Blyth, Deadline, 20 Oct. 2025
There was one moment that was very surreal.
—Hannah Sacks, PEOPLE, 20 Oct. 2025
The movie becomes more surreal, and more nerve-wracking, as Linda spirals, making worse and worse decisions.
—Bill Goodykoontz, AZCentral.com, 18 Oct. 2025
How else to explain Reeves’s appearance in this stylish, empty, increasingly surreal psychological thriller from Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn?
—Tim Grierson, Vulture, 18 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for surreal
Recent Examples of Synonyms for surreal
Adjective
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The study, published on the research platform arXiv, found that once the models were allowed to vary their bets and set their own targets, irrational behavior surged — and bankruptcy became a common outcome.—
Jesus Mesa,
MSNBC Newsweek,
22 Oct. 2025
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Poetry brings hope, not an irrational optimism or wishful thinking, but a positive orientation to the future, of what a better, healthier future would look like.—
K.J.S. “Sunny” Anand,
Time,
15 Oct. 2025
Adjective
-
Constraints give creative energy a direction to travel, shaping the search space while also confining it — just enough that exploration becomes deeper, weirder, and more productive.—
Big Think,
Big Think,
23 Oct. 2025
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Until then, things will get very weird, very fast.—
Victor Riparbelli,
Fortune,
23 Oct. 2025
Adjective
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Silver Bullet The idea of league partners doing journalism is always a strange subject.—
Andrew Marchand,
New York Times,
25 Oct. 2025
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Years later, now a lawyer, Andi wins a radio contest where the host, Jake (Romaine Waite), turns the story of the sleigh bell and stranger into a segment, as listeners help track down her mystery man before Christmas.—
Emlyn Travis,
Entertainment Weekly,
24 Oct. 2025
Adjective
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That seems unreasonable given how weak this group has been.—
Jim Cramer,
CNBC,
20 Oct. 2025
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This decision places an unreasonable financial burden on agencies and managers who are already navigating a fragile market.—
Lynette Rice,
Deadline,
17 Oct. 2025
Adjective
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The film’s ever-so-slightly absurd sincerity is nothing if not brazen.—
Owen Gleiberman,
Variety,
22 Oct. 2025
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Conceptions of world geography at the time were faulty to an almost absurd extent, Bergreen said.—
Lee Habeeb,
MSNBC Newsweek,
22 Oct. 2025
Adjective
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Bessent, who specialized in foreign exchange in a decades-long hedge fund career, organized a $20 billion foreign-exchange swap with Argentina’s central bank earlier this month — an unusual structure that bypassed the US Federal Reserve, which is typically the lead party in such arrangements.—
Daniel Flatley,
Fortune,
27 Oct. 2025
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Tucked away in a couple of buildings in Old Town are rows upon rows of colorful artwork, which is not especially unusual for the state historic park.—
Lori Weisberg,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
26 Oct. 2025
Adjective
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To me, that feels like a meaningless question in most cases, because the violence is here.—
Fiction Non Fiction,
Literary Hub,
23 Oct. 2025
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If the cosmic ray bound turns out to be meaningless, r is allowed to be even lower.—
Big Think,
Big Think,
22 Oct. 2025
Adjective
-
Let sound political prescience but take the place of an unreasoning prejudice, and this will be done.—
Frederick Douglass,
The Atlantic,
16 Aug. 2017
Cite this Entry
“Surreal.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/surreal. Accessed 28 Oct. 2025.
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