Etymologically
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fantasy

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: UK /ˈfæn.tə.si/, US /ˈfæn.t̬ə.si/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English fantasie, borrowed from Old French fantasie (“vision, imagination”),[2][3] from Latin phantasia,[2][3] from Ancient Greek φαντασία (phantasía, “appearance, image, perception, imagination”),[2][3] from phantázesthai “to picture to oneself”, from phantós “visible”, from phaínesthai “to appear”,[2][3] related to phôs “light”,[2][3] from Proto-Indo-European *bha- (“to shine”).[2] From the 16th to the 19th century the Latinized spelling phantasy was also used.[4][2] It is related to fancy, phantom and phenomenon.[5][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A spectral apparition, an illusory appearance: about 1325 in the OED,[6] the early 14th century in Etymonline.[2] Barnhart has the use of the imagination about 1350.[3]

Semantic evolution

In scholastic psychology it was the faculty that apprehends objects of perception (before 1382).[6] A whimsical notion or illusion is from before 1400,[2][3] and imagination in general, especially extravagant imagination, from 1539.[3][2] The shortened form fancy took over many of the lighter senses.[3] A daydream arising from wishes is from 1926,[2][6] and fantasy as the name of a fiction genre by 1939.[2] The verb, to imagine, is from about 1430.[3][6] Fantasy football and similar games date from the 1980s.[5]

Timeline

  • c. 1325 – an apparition, illusion.[6]
  • c. 1350 – the use of imagination.[3]
  • a. 1400 – a whimsical notion.[2][3]
  • c. 1430 – verb, to imagine.[3]
  • 1539 – extravagant imagination.[3]
  • 1926 – a wish-fulfilling daydream.[2][6]
  • 1939 – a fiction genre.[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A pleasant situation that one imagines but that is unlikely to happen; a daydream.
  2. The power of creating things in the imagination.
  3. A genre of fiction with magic, imaginary worlds or supernatural events.
  4. An idea with no basis in reality.

Verb

  1. To imagine or fantasize.

Word family

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  6. ^ a b c d e f Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press