magic realism
noun
Simple meaning
A literary or artistic genre in which realistic narrative or meticulously realistic painting are combined with surreal elements of fantasy or dreams.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
majihkreelihzuhmSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈmædʒɪkˈɹilɪzəm
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A literary or artistic genre in which realistic narrative or meticulously realistic painting are combined with surreal elements of fantasy or dreams
A literary style or genre that combines naturalistic details and narrative with surreal or dreamlike elements.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: A literary or artistic genre in which realistic narrative or meticulously realistic painting are combined with surreal elements of fantasy or dreams
Used this way, magic realism is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly warm, approving pull. It turns up most in literature or storytelling contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Positive
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Gentle
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Careful and exacting
- Usage feel
- Precise and approving
Where it naturally appears
- Literature/storytelling
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.