fantastic

Forms

fantastic m or n (feminine singular fantastică, masculine plural fantastici, feminine/neuter plural fantastice)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French fantastique and also borrowed from Latin phantasticus (“imaginary”), as DEX, MDA2 and Marcu give it.^[2][3][4][5] Marcu and Maneca add Italian fantastico.^[6] The word was used long before the French loans of the 19th century: the DA says that the old writers took it from Latin or from Ancient Greek φανταστικός (phantastikós, “able to form images”), and Tiktin gives the Greek and Latin word as its source.^[7][8] The Latin adjective is a loan from the Greek, which is formed from φαντάζω (phantázō, “to make visible; to imagine”) with the suffix -τικός (-tikós).^[1][9] French borrowed it from Late Latin in the mid-14th century.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is Miron Costin's chronicle of about 1675, where the word has an active sense, “raving”: „Mihnea-vodă... fantastic, adecă buiguitoriu în gânduri” “Prince Mihnea... fantastic, that is, rambling in his thoughts”.^[7][8] MDA2's year, 1958, is that of its edition of Costin's works.^[3] Cantemir has it in the sense “imaginary”: „tot prepusul fantastic, în locul adevărului apucând” “seizing every imaginary suspicion in place of the truth”.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Costin's sense, of a person with bizarre ideas or deeds, is now obsolete, as is “raving”.^[3] The main sense, “existing only in the imagination”, is the one Negulici gave in 1848.^[11][7] In the 19th century writers used it for things real but so beautiful or strange that they seem unreal, as in Alecsandri's moonlit „tablou măreț, fantastic” “grand, fantastic scene”.^[7] From this came the intensive “extraordinary, incredible” and the adverb in fantastic de scump “fantastically expensive”.^[2] French has the sense “astonishing, incredible” from 1833.^[10] As a neuter noun, fantasticul is the fantastic as a category of art and literature.^[3][6]

Timeline

• c. 1675 – fantastic “raving” in Miron Costin's chronicle, the first record.^[8][7]
• 1848 – Negulici's dictionary: “imaginary, chimerical, which does not exist”.^[11]
• 1886 – Barcianu glosses it with German wunderlich, seltsam “strange, odd”.^[12]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Not existing in reality; created by the imagination; unreal, fabulos: literatură fantastică “fantasy literature”.^[2][1]
2. Seeming a product of the imagination; by extension extraordinary, incredible.^[2]
3. Of people: whimsical, with bizarre ideas or deeds.^[2]

Adverb

1. Extremely, incredibly: fantastic de scump “incredibly expensive”.^[2][3]

Noun

1. fantasticul: the fantastic as a mode of art and literature, built on the supernatural and the irruption of the irrational.^[3][4]

Related words

• fantezie
• fantasmă

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 380
3. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 876
4. ^ a b Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. fantastic
5. ^ Costăchescu, Adriana; Dincă, Daniela; Dragoste, Ramona; Popescu, Mihaela; Scurtu, Gabriela (2009–2010), Dicționar de împrumuturi lexicale din limba franceză (DILF), 2 vols., Craiova: Universitaria, p. s.v. fantastic
6. ^ a b Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. fantastic
7. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română (1913–1949), Dicționarul limbii române (DA), ed. Sextil Pușcariu, tom I (A–B, C, D–De) and tom II (F–I, J–Lojniță), București: Socec / Universul / Monitorul Oficial și Imprimeriile Statului; page scans at cflr-scans.solirom.ro, p. s.v. fantastic
8. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. fantastic
9. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
11. ^ a b Negulici, I. D. (1848), Vocabular romînesc de toate vorbele streine întroduse pînă acum în limba romînească și de toate cuvintele ce s-ar mai putea introduce încă, București, p. s.v. fantastic
12. ^ Barcianu, Sava Popovici (1886), Dicționar român-germân și germân-român, revised by D. P. Barcianu, part I: român-germân, Sibiu: Institut tipografic, p. 222