fanciful

English

Alternative forms

• fancifull, phanciful, phancifull (all obsolete)

Etymology

From fancy +‎ -ful.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈfænsɪfl̩/

• Audio (US):

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• Audio (UK):

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• Hyphenation: fan‧ci‧ful

Adjective

fanciful (comparative more fanciful, superlative most fanciful)

1. Imaginative or fantastic; ignoring reality.

   Near-synonyms: conceptual, fancied, ideal, notional

   It was fanciful to suppose that all he had to do would be to stride into a top law firm and he would be hired on the spot.

   • 2009 September 7, Janet Maslin, “News at Styx: Who’s Hot in Hades”, in The New York Times‎^[1], archived from the original on 31 August 2021:

     Mr. Butler, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain,” treats his newest novelistic conceit as an occasion to toss every possible ingredient into a fanciful hellscape and then let these elements run wild.

2. Unreal or imagined.

   (Can we add an example for this sense?)

Derived terms

• fancifully
• fancifulness
• nonfanciful
• overfanciful
• unfanciful

Translations

imaginative or unreal

• Bulgarian: нереален (bg) (nerealen), фантастичен (bg) (fantastičen)
• Danish: fantasifuld, fantastisk
• Dutch: denkbeeldig (nl), verzonnen (nl), fantastisch (nl), fantasievol (nl)
• Esperanto: fantazia
• Finnish: mielikuvituksellinen (fi), kuvitteellinen (fi)
• French: imaginaire (fr), fantaisiste (fr)
• Galician: imaxinario (gl) m
• German: phantasievoll, irreal (de), unrealistisch (de)
• Hindi: मनगढ़ंत (hi) (managṛhant), कल्पित (hi) (kalpit), काल्पनिक (hi) (kālpanik)
• Hungarian: képzeletbeli (hu)
• Irish: meonúil, guanach
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: fantasifull

  Nynorsk: fantasifull

• Persian: خیال‌انگیز (xiyâl-angiz)
• Polish: dziwaczny (pl)
• Russian: прихотливый (ru) m (prixotlivyj)
• Spanish: fantasioso (es), fantástico (es), imaginativo (es)
• Swedish: fantasifull (sv)
• Thai: เพ้อฝัน (th) (pə́ə-fǎn)
• Ukrainian: химе́рний (xymérnyj)