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Definition of "phantasmagoria" [phan•tas•ma•go•ri•a]

  • A fantastic sequence of haphazardly associative imagery, as seen in dreams or fever. (noun)
  • A constantly changing scene composed of numerous elements. (noun)
  • Fantastic imagery as represented in art. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "phantasmagoria" in a sentence
  • "Poe, Baudelaire, and Rimbaud, the phantasmagoria was a favorite metaphor for the heightened sensitivities and often-tormented awareness of the romantic visionary."
  • ""Densely composed and outrageously Freudian, Brand Upon the Brain! offers psychosexual anxiety, resurrection, vampirism, and the kind of phantasmagoria that exists only in the mind of a playful visionary," writes Fernando F Croce at Slant."
  • "In this state of mind and body, it was not strange that he should either dream, or else that his diseased organs should become subject to that species of phantasmagoria which is excited by the use of opium."