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Ethereal vs Fantasy - What's the difference?

ethereal | fantasy |

As an adjective ethereal

is pertaining to the hypothetical upper, purer air, or to the higher regions beyond the earth or beyond the atmosphere; celestial; otherworldly; as, ethereal space; ethereal regions.

As a noun fantasy is

that which comes from one's imagination.

As a verb fantasy is

(literary|psychoanalysis) to fantasize (about).

ethereal

English

Alternative forms

* aethereal * aetherial * * (obsolete) * * (obsolete)

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Pertaining to the hypothetical upper, purer air, or to the higher regions beyond the earth or beyond the atmosphere; celestial; otherworldly; as, ethereal space; ethereal regions.
  • * 1667 : , Paradise Lost , book VII
    • Go, heavenly guest, ethereal messenger.
  • * 1862 : , Walking .
    • I trust that we shall be more imaginative, that our thoughts will be clearer, fresher, and more ethereal , as our sky,...
  • Consisting of ether; hence, exceedingly light or airy; tenuous; spiritlike; characterized by extreme delicacy, as form, manner, thought, etc.
  • * 1733 : , An Essay on Man
    • Vast chain of being, which from God began, Natures ethereal , human, angel, man.
  • Delicate, light and airy.

    • Derived terms

    * ethereality * ethereally * etherealness * etherealization * etherealisation * etherealizing

    References

    * American English forms

    fantasy

    English

    (wikipedia fantasy)

    Alternative forms

    * phantasie * phantasy (chiefly dated)

    Noun

    (fantasies)
  • 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.
  • (literature) The literary genre generally dealing with themes of magic and fictive medieval technology.
  • A fantastical design.
  • * Hawthorne
    • Embroidered with fantasies and flourishes of gold thread.
  • (slang) The drug gamma-hydroxybutyric acid.

    • Related terms

    * fantasize

    Derived terms

    * high fantasy * low fantasy

    Verb

  • (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.
  • (obsolete) To have a fancy for; to be pleased with; to like.
    • (Cavendish)
  • * Robynson (More's Utopia)
    • Which he doth most fantasy .

    See also

    * fancy ----