1_million_words | Word of the Day 12/21/24 Phantasmagoria

Phantasmagoria (noun)
phantasmagoria [ fan-taz-muh-gawr-ee-uh, -gohr- ]

noun
1. a shifting series of phantasms, illusions, or deceptive appearances, as in a dream or as created by the imagination.
2. a changing scene made up of many elements.
3. an optical illusion produced by a magic lantern or the like in which figures increase or diminish in size, pass into each other, dissolve, etc.

Other Words From
phan·tas ma·go ri·al phan·tas·ma·gor·ic [fan-taz-m, uh, -, gawr, -ik, -, gor, -], phan·tas ma·go ri·an adjective
phan·tas ma·gor ist noun

See more synonyms on Thesaurus.com

Origin: 1795–1805; < French fantasmagorie, compound based on fantasme phantasm; second element perhaps representing Greek agorá assembly, gathering; -ia

Example Sentences
In this enormous projection piece, Eliasson unfurls a phantasmagoria of shifting shapes and amorphous space across a vast fabric scrim stretched between the walls of a large, darkened museum gallery.
From Los Angeles Times

Lurking behind Foreman’s madhouse phantasmagorias is the mind of the artist interrogating its own secret chambers.
From Los Angeles Times

Instead of what you’d expect — legions of them, rising up in gory phantasmagoria — I encountered accounts of very few, chiefly demure lady ghosts, swathed in white, blue, or pink, like Disney princesses.
From Los Angeles Times

I can take video of the flashing phantasmagoria displayed in the windows, glowing like screens themselves, and send it to a filmmaker friend — who will be too preoccupied with other moving images to watch it.
From New York Times

David Cronenberg may have seemed like the perfect director to adapt William Burroughs’ pop phantasmagoria “Naked Lunch,” which was published in 1959.
From Los Angeles Times

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