hallucinatory
Americanadjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of hallucinatory
First recorded in 1820–30; hallucinate + -ory 1
Explanation
Something that's hallucinatory appears dreamlike or unreal. If you think you see your cat and dog having a tea party at midnight, feel free to describe it as a hallucinatory sight. If you sense something hallucinatory, it's either not really there — it's an actual hallucination, an illusory perception — or it's as dreamlike or fantastic as a hallucination. You could describe strange dreams, surreal art, and bizarre movies as hallucinatory, for example. Hallucinatory comes from hallucinate, which originally meant "deceive," from the Latin hallucinatus, "wander in the mind."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Bok, a mystically inclined author as well as artist, combined hallucinatory forms with imaginative fidelity to the texts he illustrated.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 21, 2025
"These sort of almost hallucinatory plans are creating an opening for disaster capitalism that is worrying," argues Raja Khalidi, director general of the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute, an independent think tank.
From BBC • Nov. 7, 2025
But then the already goofy “Flight or Flight” takes a turn to the insanely cartoonish as it begins its descent, into a tangle of hallucinatory madness, unearned twists and mind-boggling cliffhangers.
From Los Angeles Times • May 9, 2025
The guest star roster expands this season, looping in Gwendoline Christie, John Noble, Merritt Wever and Alia Shawkat, among others, blending them into the show’s hallucinatory starkness without drawing us out of the story.
From Salon • Jan. 17, 2025
The literature of Everest is rife with accounts of hallucinatory experiences attributable to hypoxia and fatigue.
From "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
