phantasmagoric

variants or phantasmagorical

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for phantasmagoric
Adjective
  • If the Lubavitcher community had been struck by something on the scale of the Judeans’ loss of the Temple and their enslavement, what are now marginal, hallucinatory visions of the rebbe would almost certainly take on a more declarative, redemptive form.
    Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, 24 Mar. 2025
  • There are private planes and limos and cocaine and fireworks and dancing and morning-after IV drips; Baker charges through these scenes in an almost hallucinatory frenzy, sweeping us along the way that Ani herself has been swept along.
    Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 2 Mar. 2025
Adjective
  • That must have felt like a surreal, full-circle moment to be coming back to this seminal character in your career while returning to a place that had meaning in real life.
    Yvonne Villarreal, Los Angeles Times, 21 Apr. 2025
  • Reminiscent of her striking visuals in the Louis Vuitton x Murakami collaboration, Zendaya appears larger than life—a playful, surreal perspective that echoes the artistic whimsy of that iconic collection.
    Mecca Pryor, Essence, 21 Apr. 2025
Adjective
  • Trump, in this view, inherited an economy in which a seemingly healthy job market is, in fact, illusory.
    Neil Irwin, Axios, 9 Mar. 2025
  • And cost savings has been illusory.
    Howard Gleckman, Forbes, 18 Mar. 2025
Adjective
  • The Emmy Award-winner plays the Black woman stand-in for a white male protagonist in an imaginary story to repurpose the popularity of a once successful Keyworth Pictures’ franchise.
    Malik Peay, Essence, 17 Apr. 2025
  • Perception Of Threat: In situations of aggression, whether real or imaginary, a natural response is to fight back.
    Naira Velumyan, Forbes.com, 15 Apr. 2025
Adjective
  • The star and executive producer briefly revived the series in the fictional town of Lanford, Illinois, two decades later in March 2018.
    Bryan Alexander, USA Today, 25 Apr. 2025
  • Kanopy won’t be competing with A24 for Sundance titles anytime soon, but Tyrell hopes to pursue not just documentaries but fictional book adaptations that can tap into a crossover audience of film lovers and avid readers.
    Brian Welk, IndieWire, 24 Apr. 2025
Adjective
  • Amid the audience laughter at a lecture, U.S. Navy oceanographer Robert Ballard bit his tongue and told the questioner the jewelry was fictitious.
    Terry Collins, USA Today, 14 Apr. 2025
  • Searches were carried out in France and Belgium last month to determine if his Belgian tax domicile was fictitious.
    Saskya Vandoorne, CNN, 24 Mar. 2025
Adjective
  • In spite of everything, the setting continues to compel me, as does the puzzle of Flores’s fiction, which frames the South Texas border region as a territory both physical and chimerical.
    David L. Ulin, The Atlantic, 21 Feb. 2025
  • Meanwhile, Kilgore, his dream of fame approaching, also sees its chimerical agonies.
    Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 14 Feb. 2025
Adjective
  • This isn’t callousness or delusive optimism but, rather, a rebellion against the suffocating expectation that the elderly have foreclosed the possibility of joy.
    Hillary Kelly, The New Yorker, 21 Feb. 2024
  • To separate art from its historical framework is futile, and to reject it in an effort to censor past violence is a delusive act of virtue signaling.
    WSJ, WSJ, 5 July 2022
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.

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Cite this Entry

“Phantasmagoric.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/phantasmagoric. Accessed 28 Apr. 2025.

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