Meaning

Resembling a dream: fantastic and incongruous..

Definitions by Sense

1. Resembling a dream: fantastic and incongruous.
2. (mathematics) A surreal number.

Example Sentences

surreal picture/sound/art

a surreal experience

The movie had a dreamlike, surreal atmosphere.

Three weeks after the second Time meltdown cover, one day after Leonard Cohen died, Donald Trump pulled off one of the greatest upsets in American political history. That’s when 2016 went from being a bad dream to full-on waking nightmare, one that’s just gotten worse and worse, and more and more surreal.

Incomprehensible violence and the tragedy that follows, the implication goes, inject a surreal dimension into existence. The conspiracy theories and social upheavals spawned by our own world’s mass departures—and, Lindelof has noted, electoral surprises—suggest that the strangeness of The Leftovers is mostly one of degree, not kind.

As people gushed over and grappled with the model’s capabilities, to a degree that exceeded many employees’ expectations, the web app [DALL·E 2] went viral across social media, producing a plethora of wild, wacky, and surreal AI-generated art in its wake.

Mr. Trump’s surreal endeavor to conquer Greenland is of a piece with his general hostility to Europe.

Other moments of grace played out during an otherwise surreal evening.

Word Forms

• more surreal
• most surreal
• surreals

Synonyms for surreal

Related Words

When Should You Use Surreal?

Use surreal when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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