Dictionary

phantasm en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ˈfæntæzəm/
• (US) audio

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂- Proto-Indo-European *-né- Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *bʰh₂nyéti Proto-Hellenic *pʰáňňō Ancient Greek φαίνω (phaínō) Ancient Greek φᾰντᾰ́ζω (phăntắzō) Proto-Indo-European *-mn̥ Proto-Hellenic *-mə Ancient Greek -μᾰ (-mă) Ancient Greek φάντασμα (phántasma)bor. Latin phantasma Old French fantosmebor. Middle English fantome English phantom English phantasm A learned variant of phantom; from Middle English fantosme, from Old French fantosme, fantasme, from Latin phantasma, from Ancient Greek φάντασμα (phántasma). Doublet of phantom.

Meanings

1. Something seen but having no physical reality; a phantom or apparition.
   • He declares that there seems to be no justification for regarding the phantasms of dreams as pure hallucinations; most dream-images are probably in fact illusions, since they arise from faint sense-impressions, which never cease during sleep. 1900, Sigmund Freud, translated by James Strachey, The Interpretation of Dreams: Avon Books, page 74:
   • But night comes in with a more genial spirit: we have done our worst and our bitterest; and we need a small space to indulge any little bit of cordiality that may be left in us. A thousand gay phantasms float in on the sunny south, which has left the far-off vineyards of its birth. 1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “Success”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 75:
   • Oh! We have our pockets full, we poets, of love-letters, writ to Chloes, Daphnes--creation of our noddle-heads. Our lady-loves,--phantasms of our brains. --Dream-fancies blown into soap-bubbles! Come! Take it, and change feigned love words into true; I breathed my sighs and moans haphazard-wise; Call all these wandering love-birds home to nest. You'll see that I was in these lettered lines, --Eloquent all the more, the less sincere! --Take it, and make an end! 1897, Edmond Rostand, “Act II, Scene X”, in Cyrano de Bergerac:
2. An impression as received by the senses, especially an image, often prior to any interpretation by the intellect.
   • When abstracted from the phantasm by the intellectus agens the species effects a modification in the intellectus possibilis which modification is called the species intelligibilis impressa. Actualized by the species impressa the intellectus […] 1932, Sr. Mary Anastasia Coady, The Phantasm According to the Teaching of St. Thomas:
   • Again, in a sense, the act of understanding as an insight into phantasm is knowledge of form: but the form so known does not correspond to the philosophic concept of form; “insight is to phantasm as form is to matter; […]” 1988, Bernard J. F. Lonergan, Frederick E. Crowe, Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas, University of Toronto Press, →ISBN, page 38:
   • […] schematic way the essential characteristics of the phantasm in Derrida so that we can then see how Derrida's analysis of the phantasm of the mother (or of maternity) at once contributes to and displaces this configuration. 2013 April 15, Andrew J. Mitchell, Sam Slote, Derrida and Joyce: Texts and Contexts, SUNY Press, →ISBN, page 166:

Forms

Deriveds

phantasmic · phantasmology · phantasmal · phantascope

Relateds

fantasize · fancy · fantastic · phantasmatic · fantasy · phantom

Synonyms

phantasia

Translations (1)

eo fantasmo (a thing seen but not real)