Fantastical

a. and sb. [f. prec. + -AL.]

  A.  adj.

  † 1.  = FANTASTIC a. 1. Obs.

  α.  c. 1485.  Digby Myst. (1882), IV. 1545. My wordes wer not fantasticall … I told youe no lesinge.

1529.  More, Conf. agst. Trib., II. Wks. 1182/2. With this fantastical fear of hers, I wold be loth to haue her in myne house.

c. 1530.  Pol. Rel. & L. Poems (1866), 43.

a. 1680.  Butler, Rem. (1759), I. 61.

  β.  a. 1533.  Frith, Disput. Purgat. (1829), 160. A place that … more properly confuteth this phantastical purgatory, than doth this same text.

1684.  Burnet, Th. Earth, II. 100. When anything great is represented to us, it appears phantastical.

1728.  T. Sheridan, Persius, vi. (1739), 99, note. Tertullian, in his Treatise of the Resurrection, runs the phantastical Genealogy thus: Euphorbas, Pythagoras, Homerus, Pavus, Ennius.

  † b.  Of opinions: Irrational, baseless. (Passing into sense 6.) Obs.

  α.  a. 1546.  Joye, in Gardiner, Declar. Art. Joye (1546), 53. He … conceyueth a certayne fantasticall opinion therof [of fayth].

1711.  Shaftesb., Charac. (1737), II. I. III. § 2. 52. Which only false Religion or fantastical Opinion, deriv’d commonly from Superstition and Credulity, is able to effect.

  β.  1555.  Eden, Decades, The Preface to the Reader (Arb.), 53. Such monstrous byrthes signifie the monstrous and deformed myndes of the people mysshapened with phantastical opinions, dissolute lyuynge, licentious talke, and such other vicious behauoures which monstrously deforme the myndes of men in the syght of god.

1599.  Hayward, 1st Pt. Hen. IV., 91. He said that the lawes of the realme were in his head … by reason of which phantasticall opinion, he destroyed noblemen.

  † 2.  = FANTASTIC 2. Chiefly in fantastical Body in reference to the heresy of the Docetæ. Obs.

  α.  1533.  Frith, Answ. More (1829), 174. Fantastical apparitions.

1563–87.  Foxe, A. & M. (1684), III. 308. Ye make of it [the Sacrament] a thing so fantastical, that ye imagine a Body without Flesh.

1728.  Earbery, trans. Burnet’s St. Dead, I. 220. That the Body of Christ upon Earth was a fantastical one, as the Gnosticks held.

  β.  1555.  Ridley, Wks., 200. Marcion … said that Christ had but a phantastical body.

1642.  R. Carpenter, Experience, II. vii. 185. Hee did not take a phantasticall body in the Incarnation.

  † b.  Of colors: = EMPHATICAL 5. Obs.

1666.  Hooke, Microgr., 168. These colours are onely fantastical ones, that is, such as arise immediately from the refractions of the light.

1704.  J. Harris, Lex. Techn., Phantastical Colours, such as are exhibited by the Rainbow, Triangular Glass Prism, the Surface of very thin Muscovy Glass, &c.

  † 3.  = FANTASTIC a. 3. Obs.

1526.  Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W., 1531), 125. His lyghtes be euer eyther fantasticall or els corporall.

1589.  Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, I. viii. (Arb.), 35. Euen so is the phantasticall part of man … a representer of the best, most comely and bewtifull images or apparances of thinges to the soule and according to their very truth.

1647.  H. More, Song of Soul, II. II. II. xxxv.

  † b.  Pertaining to the passion of love. See FANCY 8 b. Obs. rare^–1.

1594.  H. Willobie, in Shaks. C. Praise, 12. H. W. being sodenly infected with the contagion of a fantasticall fit, at the first sight of A..

  4.  = FANTASTIC 4.

  α.  1531.  Elyot, The Boke Named the Gouernour, I. i. They be not in commune (as fantasticall foles wolde haue all thyngs).

1589.  Warner, Alb. Eng., VI. xxxi. (1612), 157. Loue is Fantasticall in Women.

1616.  Surfl. & Markh., Country Farme, 671. The herne is but a guest for a time, affecting solitarinesse, and very fantasticall, as not giuen to stay in any place, but such as pleaseth him verie well.

1702.  The English Theophrastus, 311. The gratifying of a fantastical Appetite.

1791.  Hamilton, Berthollet’s Dyeing, II. II. VI. 307. It is in this part of dyeing that the knowledge of the artist may be most useful, by enabling him to vary his processes according to the fantastical changes of the fashion, and to arrive at the end proposed in his operations, by the most simple, short, and cheap means.

1862.  Mrs. Oliphant, Last Mortimers, I. v. 27. A pretty fantastical young girl.

  β.  1555.  Eden, Decades, 341. (Arb.), Many iudged hym [Colon] phantasticall, as is the maner of ignorant menne to caule all such as attempte any thynge beyonde theyr reach and the compasse of theyr knowleage: thinkyng the worlde to bee no bigger then the cagies wherin they are brought vp and lyue.

1621–51.  Burton, Anat. Mel., II. iii. II. 319. An affected phantastical carriage.

1693.  Sir T. P. Blount, Nat. Hist., 129. The … vain and phantastical abuse of this Stinking Weed.

1711.  Steele, Spect., No. 30, 4 April, ¶ 2. The Oxonians are phantastical now they are Lovers, in proportion to their learning and understanding before they became such.

  † 5.  = FANTASTIC 5. Obs.

a. 1618.  Raleigh, Mahomet (1637), 24–5. Upon his death-bed he commended unto his principal Commanders, the care and use of his fantasticall Law, assuring them that it was agreeable to the will of God, and that so long as they and their posterity should hold and maintaine it, they should flourish.

  6.  = FANTASTIC 6.

  α.  1599.  Shaks., Much Ado, II. i. 79. The first suite is hot and hasty like a Scotch jigge (and full as fantasticall).

1789.  Burney, Hist. Mus., III. ii. 111. Canons … in triangular and other fantastical forms.

1830.  D’Israeli, Chas. I., III. viii. 177. A portrait which, however fantastical, may still bear some remarkable resemblances.

  β.  a. 1613.  Overbury, A Wife (1638), 166. They promise to out-last much of our new phantasticall building.

1711.  Steele, Spect., No. 151, 23 Aug., ¶ 5. No, there is not in the world an occasion wherein vice makes so phantastical a figure, as at the meeting of two old people who have been partners in unwarrantable pleasure.

  † B.  sb. One who has fanciful ideas or notions.

1589.  Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, I. viii. (Arb.), 34. Who so is studious in th’Arte [of Poesie] or shewes him selfe excellent in it, they call him in disdayne a phantasticall.

1616.  J. Deacon, Tobacco tortured, 57. Alas poore Tobacco, my pretie Tobacco; thou that hast bene hitherto accompted … the Fantasticals foretresse.