surreal
Americanadjective
-
of, relating to, or characteristic of surrealism, an artistic and literary style; surrealistic.
-
having the disorienting, hallucinatory quality of a dream; unreal; fantastic.
surreal complexities of the bureaucracy.
adjective
noun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of surreal
First recorded in 1935–40; back formation from surrealism ( def. ); see sur- 1 ( def. ), real 1 ( def. )
Explanation
If you see a goldfish fly out of a melting clock and offer you tango lessons, you’re having a surreal experience! Either that or you’re asleep and dreaming. Things that are surreal combine unrelated elements to create a bizarre scene. The adjective surreal comes from Surrealism, a movement that produced films, writing, painting, and other art forms that often contained irrational, disjointed images. So, surreal describes something that’s a bizarre mix of elements, often jarring and seemingly nonsensical. Images can be surreal, like the melting clocks in Salvador Dali's paintings, but so can strange, dream-like moments in everyday life.
Vocabulary lists containing surreal
Vocabulary from the Introduction to "Reality is Broken" by Jane McGonigal
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Grade 9, List 5
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The Things They Carried
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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.
In Cornwall, people gathered at locations including Bude and a stone circle on the moors, with one person describing the experience as "very strange" and "surreal".
From BBC ● Aug. 15, 2026
"I feel like the O2 is a dream venue for so many of us musicians so to be up there was proper surreal," he says of that moment.
From BBC ● Aug. 10, 2026
It seemed surreal that a war more than 6,000 miles away could have reached Braham through the electronic connection between its water tower and well, George said in an interview.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 8, 2026
The company has followed previous Musk ventures in sharing ambitions that border on the surreal, including spacebound data centers and Mars-based manufacturing.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
A faint mist hugs the air, giving everything a surreal haze.
From "Warcross" by Marie Lu
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.
