What's the difference between surreal and whimsical?

Surreal


Definition:

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Future Brown have connections in the fashion industry, last year soundtracking a surreal film for the brand Telfar.
  • (2) But now the document turns crazily surreal, like the pointless war itself.
  • (3) According to Deborah Mattinson, his pollster, Brown " loved slogans and believed them to be imbued with a mystical power capable of persuading the most intransigent voter", and therefore went a bundle on them – not least " A future fair for all ", the surreal dud with which Labour went to the country in 2010, following 2005's equally idiotic " forward not back ".
  • (4) The surreal air of calm surrounding Spain's bond market shows no signs of dissipating.
  • (5) But, such is the intensity and surreal nature of this situation, we are all experiencing an emotional journey of self-discovery that will change us – hopefully for the better – for ever.
  • (6) "It started out as surreal, then people joined in and it sort of faded a bit, but it seemed pretty heartfelt from Rodman's side," Simon Cockerell, a tour guide who attended the game, told Reuters.
  • (7) There is the very real, or perhaps surreal, prospect, of postal workers simultaneously downing tools (parking their trolleys) and subscribing a few hundred quid for Royal Mail shares.
  • (8) The show stars Berry as a jobbing actor with vaunting ambition who gets into surreal scrapes, with a supporting cast including Doon Mackichan as his agent and Robert Bathurst as his housemate.
  • (9) Platt: "But when you score a goal like that you just go outside yourself for a bit, everything is surreal.
  • (10) Others are said to be clinging on to the idea that Ukip remains a convenient means of taking votes from the Tories (witness the surreally complacent words of the Labour frontbencher Angela Eagle: “I’m not as worried as some might be about Ukip’s appeal to Labour voters.
  • (11) Most people were concerned about how many people had been killed but luckily enough there was no game on at the time and it was the middle of the afternoon and it was a surreal experience.
  • (12) Was it surreal seeing your brother, Boris Johnson , take much of the credit for organising the whole thing?
  • (13) Before the crash, the proposed solutions to Bradford’s problems sometimes entered the realms of the surreal.
  • (14) In recent weeks, during which I kept waiting for the phrase “THE TRIAL OF ROLF HARRIS” to stop sounding completely surreal (it didn’t), I have pondered them a lot.
  • (15) A man with a machine gun chatting to a protester about midgies might seem delightfully British, but it also emphasises the surrealness of Trident and how we resort to small talk because its destructive potential is so unfathomably big.
  • (16) The police had blocked the roads – they also told us they didn’t know much more than us, and it was all a bit surreal.
  • (17) The DNC, the Sanders campaign and the Clinton campaign have all been damaged by one of the most surreal political scandals in recent history.
  • (18) Surreal character comedy doesn’t do it justice, really.
  • (19) There's something oddly surreal about some of these images.
  • (20) So, again, we weren't kidding when we said this whole thing was going to be surreal for a variety of reasons, not all of them particularly fun or amusing.

Whimsical


Definition:

  • (a.) Full of, or characterized by, whims; actuated by a whim; having peculiar notions; queer; strange; freakish.
  • (a.) Odd or fantastic in appearance; quaintly devised; fantastic.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Although he could be lovable, charming, whimsical, encouraging, and deeply devoted to his family, he subjugated the adult women in his household and at least one son to exploitation and abuse, demanding (and receiving from his wife and step-daughter) almost total abnegation of self.
  • (2) Photograph: Rachel King Doing a whimsical self-promotional piece for a weekend culture supplement We would never joke about doing a whimsical self-promotional piece for a weekend culture supplement.
  • (3) Here, it’s easy to make yourself comfortable in the sweet, slightly whimsical bedrooms that open onto a serene, tree-filled courtyard.
  • (4) There's still touches of the old, more whimsical comedian, though, not to mention a one-woman play about the Mitford sisters' love for sexy Nazis.
  • (5) The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies First up is the debut teaser for The Hobbit: The Battle of The Five Armies, the final instalment in Peter Jackson's epic three-part adaptation of JRR Tolkien 's whimsical fantasy fable.
  • (6) But with the support of Tony Whitby, the controller of Radio 4, Bob Robinson played a significant and influential part in accelerating Today's transformation from a whimsical magazine into a news and current affairs programme.
  • (7) A great read, and a delightful puzzle, but as the contradictory and whimsical interpretations of the rabbis show, hardly a reliable basis for justifying real-world land grabs.
  • (8) Find out about the great films they’re showing ...” On Monday, as Fox and Leadsom painted a vision of UK trade slightly more lo-tech and whimsical than the chocolate biscuit mill in Bagpuss, Corbyn’s only media comment was a tweet: “@LabourFilmFest is coming to the North West for the 1st time.
  • (9) More whimsical stuff for county blog regulars here in the north-east, where Darren Pattinson has been the central figure of the morning session.
  • (10) Trundling on a cheesy tourist trail around the Italian capital (the Trevi fountain, the Spanish Steps), it tells four whimsical stories that never intersect, meaning that its most watchable stars – Alec Baldwin, Penélope Cruz, Roberto Benigni and Allen, appearing in one of his movies for the first time since Scoop, in 2006 – never interact.
  • (11) In between, he has offered whimsical, slightly vaudevillian comic sagas of sex and drugs in Notting Hill (then a bohemian enclave of high hippydom) with titles such as The Saga of Peaches Melba and the Hash Officer, and Hector the Dope-Sniffing Hound .
  • (12) This highly energetic picture isn't for everyone – but if you like your whimsical magical realism done up in an antic, extra-crafty style, this may just win your heart.
  • (13) It limits evaluation to mere tendencies, formulated in such vague terms as "complete remission," "partial remission," and "treatment failure," in a disease whose natural history is sometimes so whimsical that the same clinical case, over a period of years, can be both a success and a failure of the same treatment.
  • (14) He was himself an artist in his spare time, and his whimsical creations included a man with three penises (Portnoy's Triple Complaint) carved from a tree trunk.
  • (15) He converted whatever his feelings were into the whimsical, quasi-romantic banter that eventually made its way into the Alice books.
  • (16) I still have mine at home.” Ranieri’s simulated alarm call was no less whimsical to Italian ears three decades ago than it is to English ones today.
  • (17) This article presents a whimsical overview of how a father can participate in this most important relationship through supporting and assisting the mother and developing comforting skills for the infant.
  • (18) The north-south divide always brings out the whimsical Tolkien in southerners.
  • (19) He goes after its baffling, mellifluous names – Smintheus, Agyieus, Platanistius, Theoxenius – his pencil languidly scratches, in a whimsical mock-invocation of Apollo from 1975.
  • (20) Music has always been the principal inspiration for Morris's work, and the variety in this season is reflected at one extreme by A Wooden Tree, Morris's response to the whimsical fantasy of Scottish poet Ivor Cutler, and Socrates, his marvellously poetic dialogue with the austere music of Eric Satie's score.