phantasmagoria

American  

[fan-taz-muh-gawr-ee-uh, -gohr-] / fænˌtæz məˈgɔr i ə, -ˈgoʊr- /

noun

1. a shifting series of phantasms, illusions, or deceptive appearances, as in a dream or as created by the imagination.

2. a changing scene made up of many elements.

3. an optical illusion produced by a magic lantern or the like in which figures increase or diminish in size, pass into each other, dissolve, etc.

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phantasmagoria British  

/ ˌfæntæzməˈɡɒrɪk, ˌfæntæzməˈɡɔːrɪə, fænˈtæzməɡərɪ /

noun

1. psychol a shifting medley of real or imagined figures, as in a dream

2. films a sequence of pictures made to vary in size rapidly while remaining in focus

3. rare a shifting scene composed of different elements

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Other Word Forms

• phantasmagorial adjective
• phantasmagorian adjective
• phantasmagoric adjective
• phantasmagorically adverb
• phantasmagorist noun

Etymology

Origin of phantasmagoria

1795–1805; < French fantasmagorie, compound based on fantasme phantasm; second element perhaps representing Greek agorá assembly, gathering; -ia

Example Sentences

Instead of what you’d expect — legions of them, rising up in gory phantasmagoria — I encountered accounts of very few, chiefly demure lady ghosts, swathed in white, blue, or pink, like Disney princesses.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 27, 2024

Instead, the absence of information leaves a phantasmagoria inside us, akin to what my colleague, the psychoanalyst Andrea Bleichmar has described, an ever-shifting torment of shadowy images and fantasies.

From Slate • Jun. 4, 2023

Somewhere in the middle of the swirling phantasmagoria that is the play “On Set With Theda Bara,” indeed one will.

From New York Times • Feb. 5, 2023

Sen. William Preston, a South Carolina Whig, called the statue “the most horrid phantasmagoria I have ever beheld.”

From Washington Post • Jan. 22, 2023

Here the glacier spills abruptly over the edge of a high plateau, dropping seaward through a gap between two mountains in a phantasmagoria of shattered ice.

From "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer