phantasmagoric

American  

[fan-taz-muh-gawr-ik, -gor-] / fænˌtæz məˈgɔr ɪk, -ˈgɒr- /

Also phantasmagorical sometimes phantasmagorial

adjective

1. having a fantastic or deceptive appearance, as something in a dream or created by the imagination.

2. having the appearance of an optical illusion, especially one produced by a magic lantern.

3. changing or shifting, as a scene made up of many elements.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• phantasmagorially
  adverb
• phantasmagorically
  adverb
• phantasmagorianly
  adverb

Etymology

Origin of phantasmagoric

First recorded in 1800–10; phantasmagor(ia) ( def. ) + -ic ( def. )

Explanation

Something phantasmagoric features wild and shifting images, colorful patterns that are continually moving and changing. The Greek word phantasma, meaning "image," is the ancestor of phantasmagoric, a word you can use to describe anything so weird it doesn't seem real. In the 1960's, the word was linked with psychedelic drugs that created illusions. This word can definitely apply to a movie with bizarre images, quickly changing scenes, and colors and music that are disorienting. If a romantic comedy suddenly includes werewolves and killer robots, it just became phantasmagoric. Anything phantasmagoric is extremely weird.

Example Sentences

Its bright orange shade looked almost neon against the phantasmagoric roses bursting from the carpeting and wallpaper—every inch of this underworld custom-calibrated for a blindingly colorful ride.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 9, 2026

The costumes of the cachaceros, representing Africans, are phantasmagoric confections of old jaguar pelts, caiman skulls and peccary teeth.

From New York Times • Jan. 16, 2024

The same holds for Steve Erickson, whose work blends the phantasmagoric — in “Our Ecstatic Days,” a lake appears at the corner of Laurel Canyon and Hollywood boulevards — with the stuff of daily life.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 14, 2022

But here I was, trapped in the phantasmagoric clash between expectation and reality, standing next to a man in a handmade hazmat suit who held in his gloved hand a '90s camcorder.

From Salon • Jan. 6, 2022

Things that in the North we had come to regard as inevitable—garments, firing, income tax, morality—evaporate or simplify themselves with instructive ease and phantasmagoric readiness.

From Science in Arcady by Allen, Grant