fantastical

Etymology

It is formed from English fantastic + -al.^[2][3][4][5] Fantastic is from Medieval Latin fantasticus and Late Latin phantasticus, from Ancient Greek φανταστικός (phantastikós), from φαντάζω (phantázō, “to make visible”), whose middle voice meant "to imagine" in later Greek.^[2] The spelling phantastical is now archaic.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Illusory, not of real flesh: about 1450, in Capgrave's life of St Augustine, of the fantastical body that the Manichaeans gave the Son of God.^[5] About the same time Lydgate, in a poem composed before 1449 and copied about 1460, used it for the mental faculty of fantasy: the mind fet his foode in the ffantastical.^[5] The OED's first record is from about 1485, in the Digby plays, in the sense "existing only in imagination".^[2] Etymonline dates the word to the late 15th century.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The word took over most of the senses of fantastic and long ran beside it.^[2][4] In the 15th century it already meant unreal or illusory, and theologians spoke of the fantastical body that some heretics ascribed to Christ in place of real flesh;^[5][2] the OED records that phrase to 1727.^[2] From 1531 it was used of people and their ways, for fanciful, capricious or odd,^[2][4] and since 1600, in Shakespeare's Much Ado about Nothing, of things grotesque or quaint in design.^[2] Several senses died out in the 17th and 18th centuries, among them "baseless", of opinions, and a sense of colours.^[2] As a noun, a person full of fanciful notions, it is recorded from 1589 to 1616.^[2] The Historical Thesaurus links its sense of imagination to foolishness and to love, both from the 16th century.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 1450 – illusory, in fantastical body.^[5]
• c. 1460 – of the faculty of fantasy.^[5]
• c. 1485 – existing only in imagination, unreal.^[2]
• 1531 – of people, fanciful, capricious, odd.^[2]
• 1589 – noun, a person with fanciful notions (until 1616).^[2]
• 1600 – grotesque or quaint in design.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Existing only in the imagination; unreal or fanciful: a fantastical tale of talking trees.^[4][7]
2. Odd, whimsical or capricious in behaviour or manner.^[4][2][7]
3. Strange or grotesque in design or appearance.^[2][4]
4. (rare) Of or relating to fantasy as a faculty of the mind; imaginative.^[4][5]
5. (obsolete, 1450–1727) Illusory, not of real flesh, especially in fantastical body.^[5][2]

Noun

1. (archaic) A person given to fanciful ideas.^[2][4]

Word family

• fantastically
• fantasticality
• fantasticalness

Related words

• fantastic
• fantasy
• phantasm
• fancy

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
6. ^ Mapping Metaphor with the Historical Thesaurus, University of Glasgow, mappingmetaphor.arts.gla.ac.uk
7. ^ a b The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers