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phantasmagoria

phantasmagoria

1 9.9
A changing series of strange, dreamlike images or scenes
  • noun
  • /ˌfæn.tæz.məˈɡɔːr.i.ə/
  • Literature
translation icon : fantasmagoría
  • As I walked through the art exhibit, I encountered a phantasmagoria of styles that challenged my perception of reality.

Examples

  • And so there's a way in which bureaucracy engenders this phantasmagoria of science fiction speculation.

  • The carnival was a phantasmagoria of vibrant lights and swirling colors that dazzled all who attended.

  • What is this reference to medieval phantasmagoria doing in a realistic novel?

    Academic text (2003)
  • I wonder if we should look to phantasmagoria above fundamentalities.

    Fiction book (1991)
  • Anne McClintock explains: "Nations are not simply phantasmagoria of the mind but are historical practices through which social difference is both invented and performed."

    Academic text (2004)
  • The puppet stage seems especially good at representing the city as a phantasmagoria, a dream space, at once utopian and demonic.

    Academic text (1997)
  • But the images of those chopped-off trunks, still upright, became more and more like some hallucinatory phantasmagoria than like the concrete, familiar reality of the days before.

    Fiction book (1992)
  • Inconsolably, in her old familiar solitude, she walks through neighborhoods of illusion and phantasmagoria, witnessing loss, tragedy, and heartbreak—each following a great and joyous victory.

    Fiction book (1997)
  • Her dreams often resembled a phantasmagoria, filled with surreal images and whimsical scenarios that left her in awe.

Antonyms

1.0

A fact that shows how things really are

1.4

The way things really are, not how we imagine or wish

How Illusory

phantasmagoria
  • Literature
1 9.9
fantasy
112 3.8
dream
1.0
vision
848 3.8
scene
232 1.9

Surface Forms

Morphology

phantasmagoria = phantasm (opaque) = phantasm + agoria

The base 'phantasm' (apparition) is visible, but the ending '-agoria' is a non‑productive borrowed formative, so the combined meaning is not directly predictable for average learners.

Etymology

Phantasmagoria comes from the Greek word phantasma 'ghost' and a second part -agoria that suggests a 'gathering' or 'show'. A helpful way to remember it is to think of a 'show of ghosts', an always-changing, dreamlike stream of strange images, which is why we use it for a scene of shifting illusions.