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
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Recent Examples of surreal
Leah Morrison’s eclectic costuming, Isabella Monge’s whimsical production design and the intimacy of Bethany Michalski’s cinematography harmonize to give the movie a dreamy, almost surreal aesthetic.
—
Lovia Gyarkye, HollywoodReporter, 3 Apr. 2025
That willingness to create deeply personal, almost surreal experiences defined Williams' work throughout his career.
—ArsTechnica, 1 Apr. 2025
Listen to this article Nestor Cortes experienced a surreal moment on Opening Day.
—Peter Sblendorio, New York Daily News, 28 Mar. 2025
However, everything since has been a surreal experience for the actress.
—Charna Flam, People.com, 29 Mar. 2025
See All Example Sentences for surreal
Lovia Gyarkye, HollywoodReporter, 3 Apr. 2025
That willingness to create deeply personal, almost surreal experiences defined Williams' work throughout his career.
—ArsTechnica, 1 Apr. 2025
Listen to this article Nestor Cortes experienced a surreal moment on Opening Day.
—Peter Sblendorio, New York Daily News, 28 Mar. 2025
However, everything since has been a surreal experience for the actress.
—Charna Flam, People.com, 29 Mar. 2025
See All Example Sentences for surreal
Recent Examples of Synonyms for surreal
Adjective
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Added to the chaos is the underlying rudimentary calculation of tariff levels that have produced wildly uneven and irrational effects on trading partners with no readily discernible policy value.—
Jerrold Lundquist,
Forbes.com,
5 Apr. 2025
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The characters are believably upset and irrational for much of the play.—
Christopher Arnott,
Hartford Courant,
2 Apr. 2025
Adjective
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The whole thing, from the player’s point of view, must be deeply weird.—
Rory Smith,
New York Times,
3 Apr. 2025
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That definitely comes out of my work on Freud—and, in a weird way, René Girard, who’s anti-Freudian, but there’s a lot in common.—
Molly Fischer,
New Yorker,
3 Apr. 2025
Adjective
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So what explains this strange little sequence by the side of the pitch?—
Jack Pitt-Brooke,
New York Times,
4 Apr. 2025
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To make the picture even stranger, the backseat door of the car is open and another backseat passenger’s leg is just barely visible.—
Maya Georgi,
Rolling Stone,
4 Apr. 2025
Adjective
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The words were harsh but the logic was not unreasonable.—
George Caulkin,
The Athletic,
24 Mar. 2025
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This would not be an unreasonable proposition, considering the U.S. already pledged a security guarantee to Ukraine upon its return of all nuclear warheads to Russia by 1996, based on the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances.—
Seung-Whan Choi,
Chicago Tribune,
23 Mar. 2025
Adjective
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This whole exercise of proving the absence of antisemitism as a prerequisite to criticizing Israeli government policy is absurd.—
Raja Krishnamoorthi,
MSNBC Newsweek,
9 Apr. 2025
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Still, the sexist double standards around pockets have continued to be present in absurd ways.—
Jacqui Palumbo,
CNN Money,
9 Apr. 2025
Adjective
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The contract also maintains its unusual provision allowing Sanders to disclose any athletically related outside income to his superiors verbally, thus enabling him to follow NCAA bylaws while ensuring that no public paper trail is created for these earnings.—
Daniel Libit,
Sportico.com,
28 Mar. 2025
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Cruise cancellations are relatively unusual but can happen for a number of other reasons, including when a ship is chartered or needs to go to dry dock.—
Nathan Diller,
USA Today,
28 Mar. 2025
Adjective
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Because, with the Celtics all but promised to finish second in the Eastern Conference, these games at the end of the regular season are essentially meaningless from a win-loss standpoint.—
Jay King,
New York Times,
5 Apr. 2025
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But in the stacks of the Alderman Library on the campus of the University of Virginia, the pencil and ink on the carrel shelf looked like nothing more than meaningless graffiti to almost everyone—except Professor Lise Dobrin and her students.—
April White,
JSTOR Daily,
21 Mar. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Surreal.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/surreal. Accessed 16 Apr. 2025.
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