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surreal

adjective

Definition of surrealnext
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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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 surreal The surreal French film Delicatessen, cowritten and directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amélie) and Marc Caro, points its off-kilter lens at the oddball residents of an apartment building that’s scraping by post-apocalypse. — Sara Netzley, Entertainment Weekly, 11 Sep. 2026 Twenty-five years later, the moment still seems surreal to the Mets who witnessed it. — Peter Sblendorio, New York Daily News, 10 Sep. 2026 To be able to change people's lives through your honesty and your true self is very surreal. — Elizabeth Gulino, Allure, 9 Sep. 2026 And the handcrafted, surreal warmth of Henson’s puppets and Muppets is a useful touchpoint when thinking about what the future of robots, literally, can look like. — Allie Garfinkle, Fortune, 8 Sep. 2026 See All Example Sentences for surreal
Recent Examples of Synonyms for surreal
  1. irrational
  2. weird
  3. strange
  4. unreasonable
  5. absurd
  6. unusual
  7. meaningless
  8. unreasoning
Adjective
  • Our simple equation, for example, has the solutions and , which are irrational; their digits begin and keep going forever without repeating.
    — Quanta Magazine, Quanta Magazine, 9 Sep. 2026
  • So the strongest performers tend to resist hardest, and their response is not irrational.
    — Pankaj Prasoon, Forbes.com, 2 Sep. 2026
Definition of irrational
Adjective
  • The resulting film is somehow weirder, wondrous, and more wistful than what even that logline suggests.
    — Zachary Lee, IndieWire, 16 Sep. 2026
  • The kind of weird minutiae that only nerds pull out of old archives.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 15 Sep. 2026
Definition of weird
Adjective
  • In a small town, several dead people are brought back to life through a strange ritual involving burning duck manure.
    — Katherine Brodsky, Variety, 18 Sep. 2026
  • Back outside, the strangest part of the scene might have been how normal everything seemed to the people wearing crimson and blue.
    — Taylor Eldridge, Kansas City Star, 18 Sep. 2026
Definition of strange
Adjective
  • The imposition of the tariffs stemmed from a breakdown in negotiations between the two countries in August, with each claiming the other side had unreasonable requests that would be detrimental to their respective country’s workers.
    — Washington Examiner Staff, The Washington Examiner, 8 Sep. 2026
  • Drop one task that doesn’t need to happen today, and ask for clarification if a deadline feels unreasonable.
    — Tarot.com, Baltimore Sun, 7 Sep. 2026
Definition of unreasonable
Adjective
  • The English dialogue for these films was often absurd and barely coherent, written to conform to the movements of the actors’ mouths.
    — Victor Garber, Vulture, 17 Sep. 2026
  • Correa’s contract contains a full no-trade clause, though any thought of the Astros moving him seems absurd.
    — Chandler Rome, New York Times, 15 Sep. 2026
Definition of absurd
Adjective
  • The move is unusual due to the more than six-month-long conflict between Iran and the United States and no sign that agreements to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or return to talks on Iran's nuclear program are close.
    — September 18, CBS News, 18 Sep. 2026
  • The team also needed to confirm that the unusual structures were genuine electron behavior rather than artifacts created by the microscope.
    — Georgina Jedikovska, Interesting Engineering, 18 Sep. 2026
Definition of unusual
Adjective
  • The grand scale of cosmic time reminds her (and us) that social mores and strictures are tiny, meaningless things, that what matters is passion and freedom.
    — Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 4 Sep. 2026
  • The world’s increasingly pro-Chinese attitude is not meaningless.
    — Adam Y. Liu, Foreign Affairs, 2 Sep. 2026
Definition of meaningless
Adjective
  • But in each event—in the living act, the undoubted deed—there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 6 July 2026
  • Roosevelt surely understood that nameless, unreasoning, unjustified fear cannot be eradicated.
    — New York Times, New York Times, 9 June 2026
Definition of unreasoning

Browse Nearby Words

surprisingly
surreal
surreality
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Cite this Entry

“Surreal.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/surreal. Accessed 20 Sep. 2026.

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