phantasmal
adjUK /fænˈtæzml̩/ · US /fænˈtæzməl/
Etymology From phantasm or phantasma (“phantasm”) + -al (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining to’ forming adjectives).
1
Of or pertaining to, or having the characteristics of, a phantasm (“something seen but having no physical reality”); imaginary, unreal.
- The matter of which dreams are made / Not more endowed with actual life / Than this phantasmal portraiture / Of wandering human thought.1813, Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Canto VII”, in Queen Mab; […], London: […] P. B. Shelley, […], →OCLC, page 98:
- 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.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:
2 more examples
- [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.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:
- Her secrets: old feather fans, tassled dancecards, powdered with musk, a gaud of amber beads in her locked drawer. […] Phantasmal mirth, folded away: muskperfumed.1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 1: Telemachus]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC, part I [Telemachia], page 10:
2
Of or pertaining to, or having the characteristics of, a phantom (“apparition or ghost”); ghostly, spectral.
3
Parapsychology, Pseudoscience 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”).
- Derived terms
- phantasmalian, phantasmality, phantasmally
- Related terms
- fantasmatic, phantasmatic, phantasm, phantasma, phantasmagoria, phantasmatical, phantasmic, phantasmical, phantasmically, phantastic, phantastical, phantastically, phantasy, phantom, phantomatic