Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The quality or state of being unreal.
  • noun Something unreal, insubstantial, or imaginary.
  • noun A lack of ability to deal with reality.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Lack of reality or real existence.
  • noun That which has no reality or real existence.
  • noun Unpractical character; visionariness.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The quality or state of being unreal; want of reality.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Lack of reality or real existence.
  • noun uncountable The state of being unreal
  • noun countable That which has no reality or real existence; something unreal or imaginary
  • noun Unpractical character; visionariness.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the state of being insubstantial or imaginary; not existing objectively or in fact
  • noun the quality possessed by something that is unreal

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From un- (“lack of, not”) +‎ reality.

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Examples

  • I mean how grounded in unreality (or how fickle) are these people?

    Vote now! Wine Person of the Decade [the Naughties] | Dr Vino's wine blog 2009

  • And particularly as a writer of the supernatural, I depend on those dream images to give a certain unreality to real-life situations – and to give a certain inevitability to my unreal situations.

    January 2008 2008

  • And particularly as a writer of the supernatural, I depend on those dream images to give a certain unreality to real-life situations – and to give a certain inevitability to my unreal situations.

    What dreams may come 2008

  • Therefore of course Zoskie lives in unreality given that Raevmo has such a tight grip on his version.

    Carry-Over Thread 2007

  • Therefore of course Zoskie lives in unreality given that Raevmo has such a tight grip on his version.

    Carry-Over Thread 2007

  • Therefore of course Zoskie lives in unreality given that Raevmo has such a tight grip on his version.

    Carry-Over Thread 2007

  • This unreality is boosted by: (1) the plethora of television “reality” shows that suggest that success has little to do with anything but ambition, desire, and immorality; (2) educational institutions that punish those teachers who actually assess student performance realistically and who insist on results; (3) the increasing reliance on tests that measure assorted facts and basic intelligence, but not the ability to think and learn; and (4) greater and greater reliance on pleasing parents and students than upon imparting skills and the ability to think.

    The Age of Unreality « L.E. Modesitt, Jr. – The Official Website 2009

  • This unreality is boosted by: (1) the plethora of television “reality” shows that suggest that success has little to do with anything but ambition, desire, and immorality; (2) educational institutions that punish those teachers who actually assess student performance realistically and who insist on results; (3) the increasing reliance on tests that measure assorted facts and basic intelligence, but not the ability to think and learn; and (4) greater and greater reliance on pleasing parents and students than upon imparting skills and the ability to think.

    June « 2009 « L.E. Modesitt, Jr. – The Official Website 2009

  • It is apparent that William Dudley and Ben Bernanke have succumbed to a common affliction among economists known as "unreality syndrome."

    For Americans Who Eat or Drive, Inflation Is a Reality 2011

  • In Washington, I'm not sure we have virtual reality, I think what we have up here is virtual unreality, which is a bad thing because it enables you to almost dehumanize problems and turn them into words and rhetoric and labels.

    President On Economic Plan Passage Anniversary ITY National Archives 1994

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