as in fictitious
not real and existing only in the imagination
the events in the horror movie seemed so real to some fans that they could not believe that the whole thing was fictional
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Recent Examples of fictional
Lies, murder, and major mommy issues — just another day in the fictional town of Wellsbury, Mass.
—
EW.com, 6 June 2025
Thankfully, Season 3, whose 10 episodes drop on June 5, is more interested in drama contained entirely within the fictional town of Wellsbury, Mass.
—Barry Levitt, Time, 5 June 2025
The book’s fictional town of North Lake was inspired by the city of Umatilla.
—Orlando Sentinel Staff, The Orlando Sentinel, 5 June 2025
Set on the fictional New England island of New Penzance in the 1960s, Sam (Jared Gilman), an emotionally disturbed orphan, and Suzy (Kara Hayward), a sophisticated, yet troubled girl in the vein of Margot Tenenbaum, long to grow up and get away from the chaos that surrounds them.
—Shannon Carlin, Time, 30 May 2025
See All Example Sentences for fictional
EW.com, 6 June 2025
Thankfully, Season 3, whose 10 episodes drop on June 5, is more interested in drama contained entirely within the fictional town of Wellsbury, Mass.
—Barry Levitt, Time, 5 June 2025
The book’s fictional town of North Lake was inspired by the city of Umatilla.
—Orlando Sentinel Staff, The Orlando Sentinel, 5 June 2025
Set on the fictional New England island of New Penzance in the 1960s, Sam (Jared Gilman), an emotionally disturbed orphan, and Suzy (Kara Hayward), a sophisticated, yet troubled girl in the vein of Margot Tenenbaum, long to grow up and get away from the chaos that surrounds them.
—Shannon Carlin, Time, 30 May 2025
See All Example Sentences for fictional
Recent Examples of Synonyms for fictional
Adjective
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That’s the assessment in Ari Aster’s Eddington, which views that collective national trauma through the microcosm of a fictitious New Mexico small town.—
David Rooney,
HollywoodReporter,
16 May 2025
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The trials and tribulations of the fictitious protagonist, however, have precedents.—
Angelica Frey,
JSTOR Daily,
9 Apr. 2025
Adjective
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But what were his motivations for the sculptural cut that reduced the body by a third, literally disabling all of the fetish’s functions except for those of its primary feature, the design, thereby intensifying it, endowing it even with an imaginary, almost futuristic acceleration?—
Benjamin H. D. Buchloh,
Artforum,
1 June 2025
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Dairy farmers should not be the villains in an imaginary climate change narrative - they should be respected as part of the backbone of our state's rural economy and heritage.—
Mandy Taheri,
MSNBC Newsweek,
29 May 2025
Adjective
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And as one dad recently shared on Reddit, the days of explaining things with talk of storks or other mythical tales are likely over.—
Christian Dashiell,
Parents,
7 June 2025
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Acceptance means acknowledging that zero-failure AI systems are mythical.—
Cornelia C. Walther,
Forbes.com,
6 June 2025
Cite this Entry
“Fictional.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/fictional. Accessed 18 Jun. 2025.
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