Dictionary Definition
fantastic adj
1 ludicrously odd; "Hamlet's assumed antic
disposition"; "fantastic Halloween costumes"; "a grotesque
reflection in the mirror" [syn: antic, fantastical, grotesque]
2 extraordinarily good; used especially as
intensifiers; "a fantastic trip to the Orient"; "the film was
fantastic!"; "a howling success"; "a marvelous collection of rare
books"; "had a rattling conversation about politics"; "a tremendous
achievement" [syn: howling(a),
marvelous, marvellous, rattling(a),
terrific, tremendous, wonderful, wondrous]
3 extravagantly fanciful and unrealistic;
foolish; "a fantastic idea of his own importance"
4 existing in fancy only; "fantastic figures with
bulbous heads the circumference of a bushel"- Nathaniel Hawthorne
[syn: fantastical]
5 exceedingly or unbelievably great; "the bomb
did fantastic damage"; "Samson is supposed to have had fantastic
strength"; "phenomenal feats of memory" [syn: phenomenal]
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Pronunciation
- Rhymes: -æstɪk
Adjective
- Existing in or constructed from fantasy; of or related to
fantasy; fanciful.
- He told fantastic stories of dragons and goblins.
- His fantastic post-college plans had all collapsed within a year of graduation.
- She had a fantastic view of her own importance that none of her colleagues shared.
- His fantastic post-college plans had all collapsed within a year of graduation.
- He told fantastic stories of dragons and goblins.
- Not believable;
implausible;
seemingly only possible in fantasy.
- The events were so fantastic that only the tabloids were
willing to print it.
- She entered the lab and stood gaping for a good ten minutes at the fantastic machinery at work all around her.
- The events were so fantastic that only the tabloids were
willing to print it.
- Wonderful;
marvelous; excellent; extraordinarily good (used especially as an
intensifier).
- "I had a simply fantastic vacation, and I can't wait to tell you all about it!"
Synonyms
- (based in fantasy rather than reality): fabulous, fantastical
- (incredibly wonderful): brilliant, fabulous, splendid, super, wonderful
- (extravagantly fanciful and unrealistic): foolish, hare-brained, unrealistic, wild
Translations
based in fantasy rather than reality
- Finnish: fantastinen
- French: fantastique
- Hungarian: fantasztikus
incredibly wonderful
- Dutch: fantastisch
- Finnish: fantastinen, mahtava
- French: fantastique m|f
- Hungarian: fantasztikus
- Ido: fantastika
- Italian: fantastico , fantastica
- Spanish: fantástico
extravagantly fanciful and unrealistic
- Finnish: fantastinen
- French: fantastique
- Hungarian: fantasztikus
Derived terms
Related terms
- fantasy
- fantasise, fantasize
- phantastic (variant spelling)
Extensive Definition
Fantastic is a literary term that describes a
quality of other literary genres, and in some cases is used as a
genre in and of itself, although in this case it is often conflated
with the Supernatural. The term was originated in the structuralist
theory of critic Tzvetan
Todorov in his work The Fantastic. He describes the fantastic
as being a liminal state of the supernatural.
A truly fantastic work is subtle and leaves the
reader with a sense of confusion about the work about whether or
not the phenomenon was real. Todorov compares this with two other
ideas: The Uncanny, wherein the phenomenon turns out to have a
rational explanation such as in the Gothic
works of Ann
Radcliffe; or the Marvellous, where there truly is a
supernatural explanation for the phenomenon.
There is no truly typical "fantastic story", as
the term generally discusses works of the horror or gothic genre.
But two representative stories might be:
- Algernon Blackwood's story "The Willows", where two men travelling down the Danube River are beset by an eerie feeling of malice and several improbable setbacks in their trip; the question that pervades the story is whether they are falling prey to the wilderness and their own imaginations, or if there really is something horrific out to get them.
- Edgar Allan Poe's story "The Black Cat," where a murderer is haunted by a black cat; but is it revenge from beyond the grave, or just a cat?
A clear distinction between the Fantastic and
magic
realism is that the latter does not privilege either realistic
or supernatural elements, nor ask the reader or characters to do
so.
The Fantastic is sometimes erroneously called the
Grotesque
or Supernatural
fiction, because both the Grotesque and the Supernatural
contain fantastic elements, yet they are not the same, as the
fantastic is based on an ambiguity of those elements.
Examples of writers of Fantastic literature
include:
- many of Edgar Allan Poe's short works
- Nikolai Gogol's "The Nose"
- Mikhail Bulgakov
- Algernon Blackwood's works
- Sheridan Le Fanu's works in "In a Glass Darkly"
- Mervyn Peake's ''Gormenghast series
- E.T.A. Hoffmann's works, notably Der Sandmann, "The Golden Flower Pot", and "The Nutcracker and the King of Mice"
- Gerard de Nerval's "Aurelia"
In Elizabethan
slang, a 'fantastic' was a fop; an "improvident young gallant" who
was obsessed with showy dress. The character Lucio in Shakespeare's
Measure
for Measure is described in the Dramatis Personae as a
'Fantastic'.
It should be noted that in popular usage, the
word "fantastic" has become a casual term of approval, a synonym
for "great" or "brilliant", and this has to a great extent
supplanted the original meaning of the word. However, the
Concise Oxford English Dictionary still lists the original
meaning first, with the popular meaning listed second and described
as "informal".
Footnotes
See also
fantastic in German: Fantastik
fantastic in Estonian: Ulmekirjandus
fantastic in Spanish: Fantástico
fantastic in French: Fantastique
fantastic in Croatian: Spekulativna
fikcija
fantastic in Latvian: Fantastika
fantastic in Lithuanian: Fantastika
fantastic in Polish: Fantastyka
fantastic in Portuguese: Literatura
fantástica
fantastic in Romanian: Fantastic
fantastic in Russian: Фантастика
Synonyms, Antonyms and Related Words
Barmecidal, Barmecide, Gothic, absurd, adroit, airy, alien, antic, appalling, apparent, apparitional, arbitrary, astonishing, autistic, balmy, baroque, beguiling, bewildering, beyond belief,
bizarre, brain-born,
capricious, chimeric, chimerical, clever, cockamamie, concocted, conspicuous, cooked-up,
cracking, cranky, crazy, crotchety, deceptive, delusional, delusionary, delusive, delusory, dereistic, dream-built,
dreamlike, dreamy, eccentric, egregious, enigmatic, erratic, erroneous, exceptional, exotic, extraordinary, extravagant, fabricated, fabulous, fallacious, false, fancied, fanciful, fancy-born,
fancy-built, fancy-woven, fantasied, fantasque, fascinating, fictional, fictitious, fictive, figmental, flaky, florid, foolish, forged, formidable, freakish, great, grotesque, harebrained, hatched, high-flown, humorsome, illusional, illusionary, illusive, illusory, imaginary, imagined, implausible, impossible, incomprehensible,
inconceivable,
incredible, ingenious, insane, invented, irrational, kinky, laughable, legendary, loony, ludicrous, made-up, maggoty, manufactured, marked, marvelous, massive, miraculous, misleading, monstrous, monumental, moody, mortal, motiveless, mythical, nonsensical, notable, noteworthy, noticeable, notional, odd, of mark, ostensible, outlandish, outrageous, outre, outstanding, overwhelming, passing
strange, peculiar,
petulant, phantasmagoric, phantasmal, phantom, phenomenal, poppycockish, preposterous, prodigious, put-up, puzzling, quaint, queer, quirky, rare, remarkable, ridiculous, rococo, seeming, self-deceptive,
self-deluding, sensational, signal, silly, singular, specious, spectacular, spectral, splendid, strange, striking, stupendous, superior, supposititious, temperamental, terrific, towering, tremendous, trumped-up,
unaccountable,
unactual, unbelievable, uncommon, unearthly, unexpected, unfounded, unheard-of,
unimaginable,
unique, unlikely, unprecedented, unreal, unrealistic, unreasonable, unrestrained, unsubstantial, vagarious, vagrant, visionary, wacky, wanton, wayward, weird, whimsical, wild, wonderful, wondrous