surrealism
surrealism Lexical Profile
surrealism Game Scores & Validity
• noun
A 20th-century avant-garde movement in art and literature that sought to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind, characterized by dreamlike imagery and the irrational juxtaposition of disparate elements.
"Salvador Dalí and René Magritte are among the most celebrated painters associated with surrealism."
A bizarre, dreamlike, or incongruous quality in a situation, experience, or work of art that resembles a dream or fantasy.
"Walking through the empty, fog-shrouded city streets at dawn gave the morning an eerie sense of surrealism."
• Rhymes for surrealism
• Nearby Words
Word Origin & Etymology
Borrowed in the 1920s from French surréalisme, a term coined in 1917 by the poet Guillaume Apollinaire from sur- ('beyond, above') and réalisme ('realism') and later adopted by André Breton in his 1924 Surrealist Manifesto.