Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The creative imagination; unrestrained fancy.
  • noun Something, such as an invention, that is a creation of the fancy.
  • noun A capricious or fantastic idea; a conceit.
  • noun A genre of fiction or other artistic work characterized by fanciful or supernatural elements.
  • noun A work of this genre.
  • noun An imagined event or sequence of mental images, such as a daydream, usually fulfilling a wish or psychological need.
  • noun An unrealistic or improbable supposition.
  • noun A coin issued especially by a questionable authority and not intended for use as currency.
  • noun Obsolete A hallucination.
  • adjective Relating to or being a game in which participants act as owners of imaginary sports teams whose personnel consists of actual players selected from a professional sports league and team performance is determined by the combined statistics of the players.
  • transitive verb To imagine; visualize.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Same as fancy.
  • noun Irregular or erratic fancy in thought or action; unrestrained imagination; whim; caprice; vagary.
  • noun The forming of unreal, chimerical, or grotesque images in the mind; a mingling of incongruous or unfounded ideas or notions; disordered or distorted fancy; fantastic imagination.
  • noun A product or result of the power of fantasy; a fantastic image or thought; a disordered or distorted fancy; a phantasm.
  • noun In music, same as fantasia.
  • To fancy; have a liking for.
  • To form or conceive fancifully or fantastically; form a mental picture of; imagine.
  • In music, to compose or perform in the manner of a fantasia.
  • In music, to play fantasias.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Fancy; imagination; especially, a whimsical or fanciful conception; a vagary of the imagination; whim; caprice; humor.
  • noun Fantastic designs.
  • transitive verb obsolete To have a fancy for; to be pleased with; to like; to fancy.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun That which comes from one's imagination
  • noun literature The literary genre generally dealing with themes of magic and fictive medieval technology.
  • noun slang The drug gamma-hydroxybutyric acid.
  • verb literary To fantasize (about)
  • verb obsolete To have a fancy for; to be pleased with; to like.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun fiction with a large amount of imagination in it
  • noun imagination unrestricted by reality
  • noun something many people believe that is false
  • verb indulge in fantasies

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English fantasie, fantsy, from Old French fantasie, from Latin phantasia, from Greek phantasiā, appearance, imagination, from phantazesthai, to appear, from phantos, visible, from phainesthai, phan-, to appear, passive of phainein, to show; see bhā- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French fantasie ("fantasy"), from Latin phantasia ("imagination"), from Ancient Greek φαντασία (phantasia, "apparition"), from φαντάζω (phantazō, "to show at the eye or the mind"), from φαίνω (phainō, "to show in light"), from the same root as ϕῶς (phôs, "light").

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Examples

  • The desire for authenticity * is* a Modernist element, so saying it's not found in fantasy, that fantasy is a Romantic form is simply to narrow the definition of "fantasy" to include Romantic works and techniques but exclude Modernist techniqes.

    More Aesthetics Hal Duncan 2007

  • The desire for authenticity * is* a Modernist element, so saying it's not found in fantasy, that fantasy is a Romantic form is simply to narrow the definition of "fantasy" to include Romantic works and techniques but exclude Modernist techniqes.

    Archive 2007-03-01 Hal Duncan 2007

  • There have also been suggestions, if not recently, that the boom in fantasy is partly due to the negativity and lack of “soaring imagination” of current science fiction.

    F&SF, Reviewing, and Optimism « L.E. Modesitt, Jr. – The Official Website 2009

  • Given the male-centric history of sex in fantasy, is it good or bad if my male character is into bondage?

    SEX SEX SEX SEX SEX « 2009

  • There have also been suggestions, if not recently, that the boom in fantasy is partly due to the negativity and lack of “soaring imagination” of current science fiction.

    June « 2009 « L.E. Modesitt, Jr. – The Official Website 2009

  • CHERITH (at left): I think the Harry Potter books have created a greater interest in fantasy literature in the present day, but I think the need for fantasy is something very deeply rooted in the human mind, not just for children.

    Writer Unboxed » Blog Archive » INTERVIEW: Erin Hunter 2006

  • Now, when you use the term fantasy, is this something you were doing for your personal pleasure?

    CNN Transcript Jun 27, 2005 2005

  • Now, when you use the term fantasy, is this something you were doing for your personal pleasure?

    CNN Transcript Aug 17, 2005 2005

  • Now that could be a result of my comparative lack of reading in fantasy, which is why I'm still open to reading more.

    SF Fanatic: I Am Not A Fan Of Fantasy, Here's Why 2010

  • The "Shit Blows Up" fun of Jack's rampaging could even be quite validly deemed escapist; it's just that I try to subvert the consolation subtly within the episodes or through their relationships with the rest of the text, to seduce the reader into engaging with reality even when the fantasy is at its most sensationalist.

    Essay Rant Thingy Hal Duncan 2009

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