irreal

comparative more irreal · superlative most irreal

1. human sciencesSynonym of intangible, immaterial, not composed of things, having no concrete existence.

   Near-synonyms: preternatural, supernatural, ethereal, celestial

   4 more examples

   'Irreal' objects draw on our previous sensual experience but have never existed; they are created through the spontaneous intentional operations of the imagination.

   2012, T. Dant, Television and the Moral Imaginary: Society through the Small Screen, →ISBN

   It is a shift to the ego conceived as irreal, as non-worldly.

   2013, J. Mensch, The Question of Being in Husserl’s Logical Investigations, →ISBN, page 8

   The irreal spatiality of school dining rooms, including such things as décor, furnishings, modes of ordering, manner of queuing, ambience, 'feel', can also, as we have seen, actively limit these governmental ambitions.

   2014, J. Pike, P. Kelly, The Moral Geographies of Children, Young People and Food, →ISBN

   It is impossible to directly access the imaginations of others, to know precisely if and how an imagined 'irreal' future is felt by an individual or shared by a 'collective', or to know if one has shared it oneself.

   2015, Sarah Pink, Doing Sensory Ethnography, →ISBN

   Synonyms: preternatural, supernatural, ethereal, celestial, intangible, immaterial, not composed of things, having no concrete existence