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Webster 1913 Edition

Fantasy

Fan′ta-sy

,
Noun.
;
pl.
Fantasies
(#)
.
[See
Fancy
.]
1.
Fancy; imagination; especially, a whimsical or fanciful conception; a vagary of the imagination; whim; caprice; humor.
Is not this something more than
fantasy
?
Shakespeare
A thousand
fantasies

Begin to throng into my memory.
Milton.
2.
Fantastic designs.
Embroidered with
fantasies
and flourishes of gold thread.
Hawthorne.

Fan′ta-sy

,
Verb.
T.
To have a fancy for; to be pleased with; to like; to fancy.
[Obs.]
Cavendish.
Which he doth most
fantasy
.
Robynson (More’s Utopia).

Webster 1828 Edition

Fantasy

FAN'TASY

,
Noun.
Now written fancy, which see.
Is not this something more than fantasy?

Definition 2024

fantasy

fantasy

English

Alternative forms

Noun

fantasy ‎(countable and uncountable, plural fantasies)

  1. That which comes from one's imagination.
    • Shakespeare
      Is not this something more than fantasy ?
    • Milton
      A thousand fantasies begin to throng into my memory.
  2. (literature) The literary genre generally dealing with themes of magic and fictive medieval technology.
  3. A fantastical design.
    • Hawthorne
      Embroidered with fantasies and flourishes of gold thread.
  4. (slang) The drug gamma-hydroxybutyric acid.

Related terms

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

fantasy ‎(third-person singular simple present fantasies, present participle fantasying, simple past and past participle fantasied)

  1. (literary, psychoanalysis) To fantasize (about).
    • 2013, Mark J. Blechner, Hope and Mortality: Psychodynamic Approaches to AIDS and HIV
      Perhaps I would be able to help him recapture the well-being and emotional closeness he fantasied his brother had experienced with his parents prior to his birth.
  2. (obsolete) To have a fancy for; to be pleased with; to like.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Cavendish to this entry?)
    • Robynson (More's Utopia)
      Which he doth most fantasy.

See also

Czech

Noun

fantasy f

  1. (literature) fantasy (literary genre)

French

Noun

fantasy f ‎(plural fantasys)

  1. (literature) fantasy (literary genre)

Etymology

From Old French fantasie ‎(“fantasy”), from Latin phantasia ‎(“imagination”), from Ancient Greek φαντασία ‎(phantasía, “apparition”), from φαντάζω ‎(phantázō, “to show at the eye or the mind”), from φαίνω ‎(phaínō, “to show in light”), from the same root as φῶς ‎(phôs, “light”); [presented by Liddle & Scott] as Ancient Greek *φα ‎(*pha, “to shine”).

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /ˈfæntəsi/, /ˈfæntəzi/
  • (US) IPA(key): /ˈfæntəsi/, [ˈfæntɪ̈si], [ˈfæɾ̃ɪ̈si]

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