surrealistic

comparative more surrealistic · superlative most surrealistic

1. surreal.

   This is a photograph in the surrealistic spirit. Some will find it highly interesting and entertaining, others will condemn it as nonsense.

   1939, Photographers' Association of California, Camera Craft, Fayette J. Clute, page 131

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   Today the cave is 1,000 feet above the canyon floor. You'll need a sweater inside the cave, which has a constant temperature of 42°. An indirect lighting system effectively iluminates the limestone formations with surrealistic splashes of color from various mineral deposits.

   1953, Southern Pacific Company Passenger Department, Sunset, Passenger Department, Southern Pacific Company, page 47

   UPON this shifting foundation, treacherous and uncertain as life itself, Cary succeeds in building a series of sublime affirmations. He does it by drawing upon seemingly infinite resources. The narrative techniques range from the Defoe-like quality of the first novel to the slapstick and surrealistic invention of the last.

   1958, John Brooks, Once in Golconda: A True Drama of Wall Street, Harper & Row, page 281

   Conversation had dropped to a low ebb, when, with surrealistic incoherence, someone poured a tin of turpentine on the floor in front, and there it lay in all its unhurried viscuous splendour.

   1968, Sisirkumar Ghose, Mine Oyster, Harper & Row, page 174

   When the crash finally came, it came with a kind of surrealistic slowness—so gradually that, on the one hand, it was possible to live through a good part of it without realizing that it was happening, and, on the other hand, it was possible to believe that one had experienced and survived it when in fact it had no more than just begun.

   1969, John Brooks, Once in Golconda: A True Drama of Wall Street 1920-1938, Harper & Row, page 109