phantasmal
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From phantasm or phantasma (“phantasm”) + -al (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining to’ forming adjectives).[1]
Pronunciation[edit]
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /fænˈtæzml̩/
Audio (Southern England) (file) - (General American) IPA(key): /fænˈtæzməl/
Audio (GA) (file) - Hyphenation: phan‧tasm‧al
Adjective[edit]
phantasmal (comparative more phantasmal, superlative most phantasmal)
- Of or pertaining to, or having the characteristics of, a phantasm (“something seen but having no physical reality”); imaginary, unreal.
- Synonyms: phantasmatic, phantasmatical, phantasmic, phantasmical, phantomatic
- 1813, Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Canto VII”, in Queen Mab; […], London: […] P. B. Shelley, […], →OCLC, page 98:
- The matter of which dreams are made / Not more endowed with actual life / Than this phantasmal portraiture / Of wandering human thought.
- 1910 October 1, G[ilbert] K[eith] Chesterton, “The Queer Feet”, in The Innocence of Father Brown, London, New York, N.Y.: Cassell and Company, published 1911, →OCLC, page 80:
- Mr. Audley, the chairman, was an amiable, elderly man who still wore Gladstone collars; he was a kind of symbol of all that phantasmal and yet fixed society.
- 1916 December 29, James Joyce, chapter II, in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, New York, N.Y.: B[enjamin] W. Huebsch, →OCLC, page 93:
- [H]e had heard about him the constant voices of his father and of his masters, urging him to be a gentleman above all things and urging him to be a good catholic above all things. […] And it was the din of all these hollowsounding voices that made him halt irresolutely in the pursuit of phantoms. He gave them ear only for a time but he was happy only when he was far from them, beyond their call, alone or in the company of phantasmal comrades.
- 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 1: Telemachus]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC, part I [Telemachia], page 10:
- Her secrets: old feather fans, tassled dancecards, powdered with musk, a gaud of amber beads in her locked drawer. […] Phantasmal mirth, folded away: muskperfumed.
- Of or pertaining to, or having the characteristics of, a phantom (“apparition or ghost”); ghostly, spectral.
- Synonyms: see Thesaurus:ghostly
- (parapsychology) Of or pertaining to, or having the characteristics of, a phantasm (“perception or vision of a living or dead person who is not physically present, often through telepathy”).
Alternative forms[edit]
Derived terms[edit]
- phantasmalian (obsolete, rare)
- phantasmality
- phantasmally
Related terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
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References[edit]
- ^ “phantasmal, adj.”, in OED Online , Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, July 2023; “phantasmal, adj.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
Further reading[edit]
- phantasm (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
Categories:
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *bʰeh₂- (shine)
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *h₂el- (grow)
- English terms suffixed with -al
- English 3-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- English lemmas
- English adjectives
- English terms with quotations
- en:Parapsychology