fantasma

Forms

fantasma m (plural fantasmas)^[1] The Libro de buen amor has a variant fantasima.^[2] A popular form pantasma has been in use since at least the 16th century and survives in rural speech in Spain and the Americas.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin phantasma (“apparition, ghost”), which is from Ancient Greek φάντασμα (phántasma, “apparition, image”).^[3][5][6][1] The Greek noun is formed from φαντάζω (phantázō, “to make visible”), from φαίνω (phaínō, “to bring to light, show”).^[1][3] The same verb gave fantasía and fantástico.^[3]

Corominas explains the popular pantasma as a rustic reading of the old spelling with ⟨ph⟩.^[3][3] García de Diego records it in Asturias, Galicia, Aragon, Navarre, Salamanca and Murcia, and pantaruja and mantaruja in Extremadura, with a change of suffix or the influence of bruja.^[4] The same form lies behind Portuguese abantesma, recorded in 1525 in Gil Vicente.^[7][8] French fantôme comes from a southern form fantauma, which the DHLF traces to the Ionian Greek of Marseille.^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first hit is in the Fazienda de Ultra Mar, of about 1200 in a 13th-century copy: when Peter sees Jesus walking on the water, cuedo que era fantasma “he thought it was a ghost”.^[10] In the Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca (c. 1215, in a 14th-century copy) Gozimás fears that the woman is la fantasma.^[10] Berceo has non sea engañado de fantasma mintrosa “let me not be deceived by a lying phantom”.^[10][2]

Semantic evolution

In Old Spanish the word was mostly feminine, and meant a monster, a shade or a spectre.^[10][2] Alfonso X's Estoria de España uses it for an illusion: man is fantasma del tiempo “a phantom of time”.^[11] Nebrija glossed fantasma que parece de noche “a phantom that appears at night” with Latin larva and lemures.^[12] Covarrubias explained such visions as the work of fear, of a weak head between sleep and waking, or of the devil, and noted that physicians called the images of the mind fantasmas.^[13]

Autoridades still treated phantasma as feminine.^[14] In 1817 the Academy added the sense “a stiff, solemn and conceited man”, and in 1843 it made the noun masculine, keeping the feminine for a scarecrow that frightens simple people.^[15][16] Today the DLE also has the threat of a danger and, in apposition, “false, non-existent” and “uninhabited” (ciudad fantasma).^[6] In colloquial Spain a fantasma is a show-off.^[1][17] In several countries of the Americas the word names a ghost image on a television screen, a hit-and-run vehicle or an unlicensed taxi.^[18]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – fantasma in the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (in a 13th-century copy).^[10]
• c. 1215 – la fantasma in the Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca (in a 14th-century copy).^[10]
• 1220–1250 – Corominas's first record, in Berceo.^[5][3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija's fantasma que parece de noche.^[12]
• 1548 – first record in the Americas, in Santo Domingo: las fantasmas e las ilusiones del demonio.^[19]
• 1591 – Percyvall translates it “a walking spirit”.^[20]
• 1611 – Covarrubias explains it as a false vision.^[13]
• 1817 – the Academy adds the sense “conceited man”.^[15]
• 1843 – the Academy makes the noun masculine, and records fantasmagoría.^[16][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. The image of a thing that stays printed in the imagination.^[6]
2. A chimerical vision such as those of dreams or of the imagination.^[6]
3. A ghost: the image of a dead person that some believe appears to the living: Dicen que en el castillo vive un fantasma.^[6][1]
4. A scarecrow, or a person in disguise who goes out at night to frighten people (formerly also feminine).^[6]
5. A vain, conceited person (also as an adjective); (Spain, colloquial) a show-off.^[6][1]
6. The threat of an imminent danger, or the fear that it will come.^[6]
7. (in apposition) Non-existent or false: una sociedad fantasma.^[6]
8. (in apposition) Uninhabited, of a town: una aldea fantasma.^[6][1]
9. (Mexico, Cuba, Bolivia, Argentina) A blurred ghost image on a television screen.^[18]

Word family

• fantasmal
• fantasmón

Related words

• fantasmagoría
• fantasía
• fantástico
• Latin phantasma
• English phantom

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 252
3. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 851
4. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. phantasma
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. fantasía
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. fantasma
7. ^ Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. 25
8. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. abantesma
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. fantasma
11. ^ Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. fantasma
12. ^ a b Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. fantasma
13. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 832
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 248
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 411
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 338
17. ^ León, Víctor (1980), Diccionario de argot español y lenguaje popular, Madrid: Alianza Editorial, p. s.v. fantasma
18. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. fantasma
19. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. fantasma
20. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 141