1
as in surreal
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2
as in incomprehensible
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Recent Examples of Kafkaesque
Those who value and respect America but couldn’t find their way through the Kafkaesque immigration system deserve a chance to rectify their situation.
—
Agustina Vergara Cid, Oc Register, 10 Aug. 2025
In a Kafkaesque twist, Trump’s chart assigns Eswatini the lowest possible (10 percent) reciprocal tariff, despite the fact the nation applies the same external tariffs as Lesotho.
—Robert Goulder, Forbes.com, 28 July 2025
To be fair, dealing with any healthcare bureaucracy in America is sure to be frustrating and annoying, and will most likely turn into a Kafkaesque nightmare.
—Emily Cegielski, Flow Space, 27 June 2025
Obtaining a permit to fly a drone in Nepal as a foreigner was a somewhat Kafkaesque exercise in patience.
—Ben Ayers, Outside Online, 6 May 2025
These are intentional Kafkaesque problems that the Trump Administration is creating.
—Grace Byron, New Yorker, 29 Apr. 2025
No one wants to have their family vacation turned into some Kafkaesque nightmare at the hands of ICE agents emboldened by the country's general climate of incipient fascism.
—Matt Robison, MSNBC Newsweek, 16 Apr. 2025
That standard was used to suppress the speech of faculty, such as Northwestern professor Laura Kipnis, who in a Kafkaesque turn was the subject of a legal complaint by students under Title IX for writing an op-ed column criticizing the Obama view of Title IX.
—The Editors, National Review, 16 Apr. 2025
Agustina Vergara Cid, Oc Register, 10 Aug. 2025
In a Kafkaesque twist, Trump’s chart assigns Eswatini the lowest possible (10 percent) reciprocal tariff, despite the fact the nation applies the same external tariffs as Lesotho.
—Robert Goulder, Forbes.com, 28 July 2025
To be fair, dealing with any healthcare bureaucracy in America is sure to be frustrating and annoying, and will most likely turn into a Kafkaesque nightmare.
—Emily Cegielski, Flow Space, 27 June 2025
Obtaining a permit to fly a drone in Nepal as a foreigner was a somewhat Kafkaesque exercise in patience.
—Ben Ayers, Outside Online, 6 May 2025
These are intentional Kafkaesque problems that the Trump Administration is creating.
—Grace Byron, New Yorker, 29 Apr. 2025
No one wants to have their family vacation turned into some Kafkaesque nightmare at the hands of ICE agents emboldened by the country's general climate of incipient fascism.
—Matt Robison, MSNBC Newsweek, 16 Apr. 2025
That standard was used to suppress the speech of faculty, such as Northwestern professor Laura Kipnis, who in a Kafkaesque turn was the subject of a legal complaint by students under Title IX for writing an op-ed column criticizing the Obama view of Title IX.
—The Editors, National Review, 16 Apr. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for Kafkaesque
Adjective
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Eva Longoria took the subtle bow shoe trend at Cannes into Jacquemus’ surreal sculptural language on Tuesday, stepping out at Hotel Martinez during the 79th annual Cannes Film Festival in the label’s black High Cubisto slingbacks.—
Maggie Clancy,
Footwear News,
19 May 2026
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And so my surreal day-to-day, a regular life broken up by suspensions of my rights, stopped mattering.—
Abraham Jiménez Enoa,
The Dial,
19 May 2026
Adjective
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Europeans, Bennett notes, find this genuinely incomprehensible.—
Nick Lichtenberg,
Fortune,
11 May 2026
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Ashly's death is an incomprehensible tragedy.—
Julia Bonavita,
FOXNews.com,
6 May 2026
Adjective
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The Sun forms a cazimi with Mercury in Taurus in your 3rd House of Communication, illuminating messages, conversations, errands, and daily decisions with unusual clarity.—
Tarot.com,
Hartford Courant,
14 May 2026
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The unusual move would allow the administration to bypass a public bidding process, relying on a deal for engineering services already underway at the White House.—
Sarah Blaskey,
Washington Post,
14 May 2026
Adjective
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Also inexplicable is the movie’s setting circa the dawn of COVID, where masks and quarantine come into play — though for many out there, that was surely a time when relapses were around the bend, the temptation of a bender without judgment and out of view very easily had.—
Ryan Lattanzio,
IndieWire,
17 May 2026
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Why something with the punch of classical tragedy — love destroyed from within by an inexplicable streak of evil — had to be so over-egged is baffling.—
Stephanie Bunbury,
Deadline,
15 May 2026
Adjective
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Institutional trading desks spend enormous amounts of time studying behavior, emotional responses and risk tolerance because markets constantly pressure people into making irrational decisions.—
Robert Daugherty,
Forbes.com,
17 May 2026
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The bullish argument goes that earnings season went better than expected, so the rally isn’t irrational.—
Allison Morrow,
CNN Money,
13 May 2026
Adjective
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In his work, the unfathomable is what most powerfully involves us—some private kernel of feeling that resists interpretation, and always remains out of reach.—
Sebastian Smee,
The Atlantic,
16 May 2026
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There is no way to fill the unfillable void left by Ashly's passing and no way to make sense of this unfathomable loss.—
Luke Chinman,
PEOPLE,
6 May 2026
Adjective
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They were considered to have strange physical afflictions or weak mental attitudes, and some people with endocrine diseases were even dismissed as ‘freaks’ and heckled in circuses or locked away in institutions.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
20 May 2026
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So yes, there was a kind of resistance, because the film and the script could seem strange, and some people wanted to normalize it, to fit it into a genre.—
Roberto Prieto,
Variety,
19 May 2026
Adjective
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Death penalty states generally allow last statements from the execution chamber, but Texas catalogs the prisoners’ last words online, except for vulgar and racist language or what sounds unintelligible.—
Erik Ortiz,
NBC news,
20 May 2026
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The man responded, but his words are unintelligible in the recording.—
Charlotte Observer,
Charlotte Observer,
20 May 2026
Cite this Entry
“Kafkaesque.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/Kafkaesque. Accessed 23 May. 2026.
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