UNREALITY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does unreality mean? 

• UNREALITY (noun)
  The noun UNREALITY has 2 senses:

1. the quality possessed by something that is unreal

2. the state of being insubstantial or imaginary; not existing objectively or in fact

  Familiarity information: UNREALITY used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• UNREALITY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The quality possessed by something that is unreal

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("unreality" is a kind of...):

immateriality; incorporeality (the quality of not being physical; not consisting of matter)

Antonym:

reality (the quality possessed by something that is real)

Derivation:

unreal (lacking in reality or substance or genuineness; not corresponding to acknowledged facts or criteria)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The state of being insubstantial or imaginary; not existing objectively or in fact

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

irreality; unreality

Hypernyms ("unreality" is a kind of...):

nonentity; nonexistence (the state of not existing)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "unreality"):

cloud (out of touch with reality)

falseness; falsity (the state of being false or untrue)

Antonym:

reality (the state of being actual or real)

Derivation:

unreal (lacking material form or substance; unreal)

unreal (lacking in reality or substance or genuineness; not corresponding to acknowledged facts or criteria)

 Context examples 

Hamilton Depression Rating Scale 21 Item (HAMD-21) Depersonalization and derealization; such as feelings of unreality, nihilistic ideas.

(HAMD-21 - Depersonalization and Derealization, NCI Thesaurus)

I was in doubt, and then everything took a hue of unreality, and I did not know what to trust, even the evidence of my own senses.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

A feeling of altered reality characterized by a feeling of unreality, or being unreal.

(Derealisation, NCI Thesaurus)

Her only experiences in such matters were of the books, where the facts of ordinary day were translated by fancy into a fairy realm of unreality; and she little knew that this rough sailor was creeping into her heart and storing there pent forces that would some day burst forth and surge through her in waves of fire.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

I saw my life as a whole: I followed it up from the days of childhood, when I had walked with my father’s hand, and through the self-denying toils of my professional life, to arrive again and again, with the same sense of unreality, at the damned horrors of the evening.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

For a while these reveries provided an outlet for his imagination; they were a satisfactory hint of the unreality of reality, a promise that the rock of the world was founded securely on a fairy's wing.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)