Fantasy, phantasy sb.

Forms: α. 4–7 fantasi(e, -ye, -azie, -aisie, -aysie, -esi(e, -esy(e, -essy, (5 fantsy, fayntasie, feintasy), 5–6 fantosy, 6–7 fantacie, -y, 4– fantasy. β. 6–8 phantasie, (6 -esie, 6–7 phant’sie, -’sy), 6– phantasy. [a. OF. fantasie (Fr. fantaisie), (= Pr. fantazia, Sp., Pg. fantasia, It. fantasia), ad. L. phantasia, a. Gr. φαντασία lit. ‘a making visible,’ f. φαντάζειν to make visible, f. φαίνειν to show.

  The senses of φαντασία from which the senses of the word in the mod. langs. are developed are: 1. appearance, in late Gr. esp. spectral apparition, phantom (so L. phantasia in Vulg.); 2. the mental process or faculty of sensuous perception; 3. the faculty of imagination. These senses passed through OF. into Eng., together with others (as delusive fancy, false or unfounded notion, caprice, etc.) which had been developed in late L., Romanic, or Fr. The shortened form FANCY, which apparently originated in the 15th c., had in the time of Shakspere become more or less differentiated in sense. After the revival of Greek learning, the longer form was often spelt phantasy, and its meaning was influenced by the Gr. etymon. In mod. use fantasy and phantasy, in spite of their identity in sound and in ultimate etymology, tend to be apprehended as separate words, the predominant sense of the former being ‘caprice, whim, fanciful invention,’ while that of the latter is ‘imagination, visionary notion.’]

  1.  In scholastic psychology: † a. Mental apprehension of an object of perception; the faculty by which this is performed. Obs.

[a. 1382.  Oresme, in Meunier, Ess. sur Oresme, 179. Il entent par fantasie apprehension ou cognoissance sensitive des choses presentes.]

  α.  c. 1400.  Lanfranc’s Cirurg., 113. Þat place [þe brayn] is propre instrument of ymagynacioun þe which resceyveþ þinges þat comprehendiþ of fantasie [res a phantasia comprehensas].

1509.  Hawes, The Pastime of Pleasure, xxiv. ii.

1675.  Baxter, Cath. Theol., II. I. 76. Sense perceiveth sweetness by tast or smell, light and pulchritude by sight and fantasie, sensual joy by internal sense.

  β.  a. 1618.  Raleigh, Rem. (1664), 126. According to the diversity of the eye, which offereth it unto the phantasie.

1655–60.  T. Stanley, Hist. Philos. (1701), 478/2. It is therefore likely, that all living Creatures which have Eye-balls oblique and narrow … have a peculiar phantasie of Objects, different from those which have round balls.

1669.  A. Browne, Ars Pictoria, 40. Light … is the cause of Formal Reason, whereby coloured things are seen, whose Shapes and Images pass to the phantasie, and especially enlighten the Eyes, on which the Image is formed.

  † b.  The image impressed on the mind by an object of sense. Obs.

c. 1340.  Hampole, Prose Tr. (1866), 14. When the resone es cleryde fra all … fygours and fantasyes of creatures.

1596.  Carew, Huarte’s Exam. Wits, xi. 155. Memorie supplieth none other office in the head than faithfully to preserue the figures and fantasies of things: but the vnderstanding and the imagination, are those which work therewithall.

  † 2.  A spectral apparition, phantom; an illusory appearance. Obs.

c. 1325.  A Song of Yesterday, 30 in E. E. P. (1862), 134.

1398.  Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., IX. xxv. (1495), 362. Moo fantasyes ben seen by nyghte than by daye.

1401.  Political Poems (Rolls), II. 46.

c. 1425.  Wyntoun, Cron., VI. xviii. 31.

1530.  Palsgr., 172. Phantosme, a fantosy.

a. 1533.  Ld. Berners, Huon, xii. 64. All is but fantesey and enchauntementes.

1535.  Stewart, Cron. Scot., III. 365. Trowand that tyme it was ane phantasie.

a. 1583.  Grindal, Fruitful Dial., Wks (1843), 59. No bread to break, but certain fantasies of white and round.

  3.  Delusive imagination, hallucination; the fact or habit of deluding oneself by imaginary perceptions or reminiscences. ? Obs.

  α.  1340–70.  Alisaunder, 384. For fere, ne fantasia faile they nolde.

c. 1374.  Chaucer, Troylus, V. 1535. This fool of fantasia [sc. Cassandra].

1574.  R. Scot, Hop Gard. (1578), 60. Such, as haue Mountaynes in fantasie, and beggery in possession, I meane that they which haue a Hoppe hyll in derision, will scant fall out to leaue a Moulehill in reuersion.

1602.  Shaks., Ham., I. i. 54.

1658.  S. Simpson, Unbelief, ix. 66. They thought it was but meer fantasie and imagination.

  β.  a. 1533.  Frith, Disput. Purgat. (1829), 83. Making … the elders … to wander in phantasies.

1654.  Case of Commonwealth, 50. If we falter, or be mis-led through phant’sie.

1675.  Brooks, Signal Presence of God, 20. Raising such a phantasy in the Lyons that they looked upon Daniel … as on one that was a friend unto them.

1753.  Smollett, Ct. Fathom (1784), 11/1. How upright soever a man’s intentions may be, he will, in the performance of such a task, be sometimes misled by his own phantasy, and represent objects as they appeared to him through the mists of prejudice and passion.

  4.  Imagination; the process or the faculty of forming mental representations of things not actually present. (Cf. FANCY sb. 4.) Also personified. Now usually with sense influenced by association with fantastic or phantasm: Extravagant or visionary fancy.

  In early use not clearly distinguished from 3; an exercise of poetic imagination being conventionally regarded as accompanied by belief in the reality of what is imagined.

  α.  1589.  Greene, Menaphon (Arb.), 41. The Idea of her person represents it selfe an object to my fantasie, and that I see in the discouerie of her excellence, the rare beauties of.

1602.  Marston, Ant. & Mel., III. Wks. 1856, I. 35.

a. 1631.  Donne, Elegie, Poems (1633), 153.

1831.  Carlyle, Sart. Res. (1858), 52. Ever, in my distresses and my loneliness, has Fantasy turned, full of longing (sehnsuchtsvoll), to that unknown Father, who perhaps far from me, perhaps near, either way invisible, might have taken me to his paternal bosom, there to lie screened from many a woe.

1870.  Lowell, Among my Bks., Ser. I. (1873), 176. Imagination, as it is too often misunderstood, is mere fantasy, the image-making power common to all who have the gift of dreams.

  β.  1553.  T. Wilson, Rhet. (1567), 17 a. Nature is a righte that phantasie hath not framed.

1672–3.  Marvell, Reh. Transp., II. 130. You have attracted by force of phantasy some extraordinary Spirit to your assistance.

1704.  Newton, Opticks, I. II. viii. 120. By the power of phantasy we see Colours in a Dream.

1831.  Lytton, Godolph., xxvii. Volktman himself, in the fulness of his northern phantasy, [could not] have sculptured forth a better image.

1837–8.  Sir W. Hamilton, Logic, ii. (1870), III. 22. We may view it in phantasy as black or white.

1855.  Milman, Lat. Chr. (1864), IX. XIV. vii. 258, note. Their union with the Deity was not that of Pantheism, or of passionate love; it was rather through the phantasy.

  b.  A mental image.

1823.  Lamb, Elia, Ser. I., Grace before meat. To the temperate fantasies of the famished Son of God.

a. 1853.  Robertson, Serm., Ser. III. vi. 81. Our creative shaping intellect projected its own fantasies.

1876.  Geo. Eliot, Dan. Der., VI. xlviii. Fantasies moved within her like ghosts.

  c.  A product of imagination, fiction, figment.

1362.  Langl., P. Pl., A. I. 36.

1399.  Political Poems (Rolls), I. 371.

1688.  R. Holme, Armoury, III. 147/1. Centaurs, Satyrs, Griffins, &c. [are] Forced Figures … Fiction or Fantacy … to express a Novelty.

  d.  An ingenious, tasteful, or fantastic invention or design.

  α.  c. 1440.  Gesta Rom., xxxii. 123 (Harl. MS). A silkyne gyrdil, sotilly i-made; for þe damyselle comunely lovithe swiche fantasijs.

1542.  Recorde, Gr. Artes (1561), Y vj a. Some questions of thys rule maye be varied above 1000 waies; but I would have you forget suche fantasies, tyll a time of more leysure.

1848.  Dickens, Dombey, xxiii. There was a monstrous fantasy of rusty iron.

  β.  1542–3.  Act 34–5 Hen. VIII., C. 1. Balades, plaies, rimes, songes, and other phantasies.

1821.  Keats, Isabella, xlvii.

  e.  esp. in Music; a fantasia. (Cf. 6.)

1597.  T. Morley, Introd. Mus., 181. The … chiefest kind of musick which is made without a dittie is the fantasie, that is, when a musician taketh a point at his pleasure, and wresteth and turneth it as he list.

1674.  Playford, Skill Mus., I. x. 34. This is called the Dupla or Semibreve Time, (but many call it the Common Time, because most used;) its Mood … is usual in Anthems, Fantasies, Fantasies, Pavans, Almans, and the like.

  5.  A supposition resting on no solid grounds; a whimsical or visionary notion or speculation.

  Now more emphatically contemptuous than FANCY sb.

  α.  c. 1400.  Destr. Troy, 2669. His olde fader fantasi þai filet in hert.

c. 1440.  Generydes, 4652.

1526.  Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W., 1531), 166 b. The mynde … is moost apte to … waueryng fantasyes aboute dyuerse thynges.

1665.  Manley, Grotius’ Low C. Warres, 953. The Minds of the common People would be divided, according as any one would teach his Fantasies.

1876.  Mrs. Whitney, Sights and Insights, II. xiv. 443. All that would be to them less than fancy—mere fantasy.

1878.  Morley, Vauvenargues, Crit. Misc., 20. That doctrine of the predominance of the heart over the head, which has brought forth so many pernicious and destructive fantasies in the history of social thought, represented in his case no more than a reaction against the great detractors of humanity.

  β.  1586.  Cogan, Haven Health, ccxliii. (1636), 306. Vaine therefore is their phantasie that thinke it ungodly to flee from the place the plague is, and to use the helpe of phisicke in their infirmities.

a. 1610.  Healey, Epictetus Man. (1636), 30. Keepe thy minde firme against all such phantasies.

1858.  R. A. Vaughan, Ess. & Rev., I. 6. Not a phantasy in religion … but might there soar or flutter.

  † b.  In my fantasy: = ‘as I imagine’; modestly used for ‘in my opinion.’ Obs.

  α.  1543.  Recorde, Gr. Artes (1561), L j. And yet in my simple fantasy these thinges offer them-selves … to be studied for aboute progression.

1570–6.  Lambarde, A Perambulation of Kent (1826), 191. In mine own fantasie it wanteth not the feete of sound reason to stand upon.

  β.  1570–6.  Lambarde, A Perambulation of Kent (1826), 237. There standeth a Towne yet called Sturmere, which (in my phantasie) sufficiently mainteineth the knowledge of this matter.

  6.  Caprice, changeful mood; an instance of this; a caprice, whim, † Often in at, after, according to, upon one’s own fantasy (obs.).

  α.  a. 1450.  Knt. de la Tour (1868), 23. A good ensaumple to alle good women, that thei aught to leue alle such fantasyes, and suffre and endure paciently her anger, yef thei haue ani.

1490.  Caxton, Eneydos, vi. 25. His wyf, whiche thenne he loued also moche of fyne loue wythout fayntasie.

1519.  Interlude of the Four Elements, in Hazl., Dodsley, I. 7.

1598.  Barret, Theor. Warres, V. i. 146. Whosoeuer shall kill his souldier vpon his owne fantasie, without iust cause, or kill any other of the Campe, otherwise then in his owne defence.

1649.  Milton, Eikon., xi. (1851), 419–20. At what a fine pass is the Kingdom, that must depend in great exigencies upon the fantasie of a Kings reason, be hee wise or foole, who arrogantly shall answer all the wisdom of the Land, that what they offer seemes to him unreasonable.

1679–1714.  Burnet, Hist. Ref. His offered to purge himself by his oath that it was purely out of a principle of conscience, and out of no light fantasy or obstinacy, that he thus refused it.

1814.  Scott, Ld. of Isles, VI. xvii.

1883.  C. F. Woolson, For the Major, iv. These little ways of his, however, were considered to belong to the ‘fantasies of genius.’

  β.  1548.  Hall, Chron., 137 b. The Dolphyn tooke upon hym, the rule and gouernaunce of the realme, orderyng causes, not in his fathers name, nor by his authoritie, but after his awne wil, affeccion, and phantasie.

1624.  Capt. Smith, Virginia, III. v. 55. Our store, our time, our strength and labours were idely consumed to fulfill his phantasies.

  † 7.  Inclination, liking, desire. Obs.

  α.  c. 1374.  Chaucer, Former Age, 51.

c. 1450.  Merlin, 213. Soche a fantasie fill in his herte that he cowde not it remeve.

1462.  Paston Lett., No. 435, II. 83. If … ther be sent swhyche downe to tak a rewyll as the pepyll hathe a fantsy in.

1535.  Stewart, Cron. Scot., II. 158.

1599.  Hakluyt, Voy., I. 4. He fell into a fantasie and desire to … know how farre that land stretched.

a. 1618.  Raleigh, Rem. (1644), 83. Every man prefers his fantasie in that appetite, before all other worldly desires.

  β.  1563–87.  Foxe, A. & M. (1596), 65/1. Diuerse men [worship] diuerse gods; so as euerie one hath in himselfe a mind or phantasie to worship.