surreal

/səˈriəl/

/səˈril/

Other forms: surreally

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.

Definitions of surreal

1. adjective

   characterized by fantastic and incongruous imagery
   “the incongruous imagery in surreal art and literature”

   synonyms: phantasmagoric, phantasmagorical, surrealistic

   unrealistic

   not realistic
2. adjective

   resembling a dream
   “as irrational and surreal as a dream”

   synonyms: dreamlike

   unreal

   not actually such; being or seeming fanciful or imaginary