surreal

A back-formation from surrealism, equivalent to sur- +‎ real.

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /səˈɹiː(.ə)l/

  • Audio (Southern England):

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• Hyphenation: sur‧re‧al
• Rhymes: -iːl

surreal (comparative more surreal, superlative most surreal)

1. Resembling a dream: fantastic and incongruous.

   Synonyms: dreamlike, (art) surrealist

   surreal picture/sound/art

   a surreal experience

   The movie had a dreamlike, surreal atmosphere.

   • 2016 December 19, Dave Bry, “'Surreal' is Merriam-Webster's word of the year. Sounds about right”, in The Guardian‎^[1], →ISSN:

     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.

   • 2017 June 16, Spencer Kornhaber, “The Dizzying, Surreal Journey of ‘The Leftovers’”, in The Atlantic‎^[2], →ISSN:

     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.

   • 2025, Karen Hao, Empire of AI, New York City: Penguin Press, →ISBN:

     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.

   • 2026 January 9, James Kirchick, “Greenland Is Only the Beginning. Trump Has His Sights Set on Europe.”, in The New York Times‎^[3], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC:

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

     (Can we archive this URL?)

• real

surreal (plural surreals)

1. (mathematics) A surreal number.

• Rurales, serrula

• Audio (Germany (Berlin)):

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• Audio (Germany (Berlin)):

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• Audio (Germany (Berlin)):

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surreal (strong nominative masculine singular surrealer, comparative surrealer, superlative am surrealsten)

1. surreal

• “surreal” in Duden online
• “surreal” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache

• Rhymes: -al, -aw
• Hyphenation: sur‧re‧al

surreal m or f (plural surreais)

1. surreal

• surrealismo
• surrealista

• “surreal”, in Dicionário Aulete Digital (in Portuguese), Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon Editora Digital, 2008–2026
• “surreal”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2026

• IPA^(key): /sureˈal/ [su.reˈal]
• Rhymes: -al
• Syllabification: su‧rre‧al

surreal m or f (masculine and feminine plural surreales)

1. surreal