fantasy

• phantasie (obsolete)
• phantasy (archaic)

Noun inherited from Middle English fantasie, from Old French fantasie (“fantasy”), from Latin phantasia (“imagination”), from Ancient Greek φαντασία (phantasía, “apparition”), from φαντάζω (phantázō, “to render visible”), from φαντός (phantós, “visible”), from φαίνω (phaínō, “to make visible”); from the same root as φάος (pháos, “light”); ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰh₂nyéti, from the root *bʰeh₂- (“to shine”). Doublet of fancy, fantasia, phantasia, and phantasy.

Verb from Middle English fantasien, from Old French fantasier. Doublet of fancy.

• IPA^(key): /ˈfæntəsi/, /ˈfæntəzi/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

fantasy (countable and uncountable, plural fantasies)

1. That which comes from one's imagination.
   • c. 1599–1602, William Shakespeare, Hamlet, London, act 1, scene 1:

     Is not this something more than fantasy?

   • 1634, John Milton, Comus:

     A thousand fantasies / Begin to throng into my memory.

   • 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:

     The whole position was so tremendous and so absolutely unearthly, that I believe it actually lulled our sense of terror, but to this hour I often see it in my dreams, and at its mere phantasy wake up covered with cold sweat.

   • 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 92:

     Try as hard as it can, empirical science cannot come up with a naturalistic explanation; it can only slip into fantasies that make scientists feel good because they are in harmony with their opinions, prejudices, and unconscious assumptions about the nature of reality.

2. (literature) The literary genre generally dealing with themes of magic and the supernatural, imaginary worlds and creatures, etc.
3. A fantastical design.
   • 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, chapter 7, in The Scarlet Letter:

     Embroidered with fantasies and flourishes of gold thread.

4. (slang) The drug gamma-hydroxybutyric acid.

• fantasize

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

1. (transitive)
   1. To conceive (something) mentally; to imagine.
   2. (literary, psychoanalysis) To fantasize about something).
      • 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. (intransitive)
   1. To conceive mentally; to imagine.
      • 1569, Richard Grafton, “Richarde the Thirde”, in A Chronicle at Large and Meere History of the Affayres of Englande […], volume II, London: […] Henry Denham, […], for Richarde Tottle and Humffrey Toye, →OCLC, page 816:

        Firſt I phantaſied that if I liſt to take vpon me the crowne and imperiall Scepter of the realme, now was the time propice and conuenient.

   2. (obsolete) To have a fancy for; to be pleased with; to like.
      • 1551, Thomas More, “(please specify the Internet Archive page)”, in Raphe Robynson [i.e., Ralph Robinson], transl., A Fruteful, and Pleasaunt Worke of the Best State of a Publyque Weale, and of the Newe Yle Called Utopia: […], London: […] [Steven Mierdman for] Abraham Vele, […], →OCLC:

        Which he doth most fantasy.

      • 1641, George Cavendish, Thomas Wolsey, Late Cardinall, his Lyffe and Deathe:

        The kyng fantasied so much his daughter Anne that almost everything began to grow out of frame and good order

• cloud-cuckoo-land

Borrowed from English fantasy. Doublet of fantasie.

fantasy f

1. (literature) fantasy (literary genre)

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

Borrowed from English fantasy. Doublet of fantasi.

fantasy

1. (literature) fantasy (literary genre)

• fantasie

Unadapted borrowing from English fantasy. Doublet of fantaisie.

• IPA^(key): /fɑ̃.tɛ.zi/ ~ /fɑ̃.te.zi/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Homophones: fantaisie, fantaisies, phantaisie, phantaisies

fantasy f (plural fantasys)

1. (literature) fantasy (literary genre)

   Hyponym: heroic fantasy

• “fantasy” in Dictionnaire français en ligne Larousse.
• “fantasy” in Dictionnaire Le Robert.

Borrowed from English fantasy. Doublet of fantasi.

• IPA^(key): /ˈfæːn.tə.si/, /ˈfæːn.ta.si/

fantasy m (definite singular fantasyen, indefinite plural fantasyer, definite plural fantasyene)

1. (literature) fantasy (genre)

• “fantasy” in The Bokmål Dictionary.
• “fantasy” in Det Norske Akademis ordbok (NAOB).

Unadapted borrowing from English fantasy. Doublet of fantazja.

• IPA^(key): /ˈfan.ta.zɘ/, /fanˈta.zɘ/
• Rhymes: -antazɘ, -azɘ
• Syllabification: fan‧ta‧sy

fantasy n (indeclinable)

1. fantasy (genre)

fantasy (not comparable, no derived adverb)

1. (relational) fantasy

• fantasy in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• fantasy in Polish dictionaries at PWN