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Fantasy vs Fanciful - What's the difference?

fantasy | fanciful |

As a noun fantasy

is that which comes from one's imagination.

As a verb fantasy

is (literary|psychoanalysis) to fantasize (about).

As an adjective fanciful is

imaginative or fantastic; unreal or imagined.

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 ----

    fanciful

    English

    Alternative forms

    * fancifull * phanciful * phancifull

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • imaginative or fantastic; unreal or imagined

    • Derived terms

    * fancifully * fancifulness