Fancy Meaning
/ˈfæn.si/Definition, CEFR level B1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounThe imagination.
nounAn image or representation of anything formed in the mind.
Sentence Examples
Hello. Fancy meeting you here.
Hello! Fancy meeting you here! It's a small world, isn't it?
A kitchen full of fancy gadgets
CEFR Practice Quiz
She has a ____ that she can win the lottery and travel the world.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
They went to a ____ restaurant for their anniversary, where the food was both tiny and expensive.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English fansy, fantsy, a contraction of fantasy, fantasye, fantasie, from Old French fantasie, from Medieval Latin fantasia, from Late Latin phantasia (“an idea, notion, fancy, phantasm”), from Ancient Greek φαντασία (phantasía), from φαντάζω (phantázō, “to render visible”), from φαντός (phantós, “visible”), from φαίνω (phaínō, “to make visible”); from the same root as φάος (pháos, “light”); ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰh₂nyéti, from the root *bʰeh₂- (“to shine”). Doublet of fantasia, fantasy, phantasia, and phantasy.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"[…] But know that in the soul / Are many lesser faculties, that serve / Reason as chief; among these Fancy next / Her office holds […]"
— 1667, John Milton, “Book V”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 100-103:
"In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish’d dove; / In the Spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love."
— 1835, Alfred Tennyson, “Locksley Hall”, in Poems. […], volume II, London: Edward Moxon, […], published 1842, →OCLC, page 94:
"Rustic females who habitually chew even pitch or spruce-gum are rendered thereby so repulsive that the fancy refuses to pursue the horror farther and imagine it tobacco […]"
— 1861 December, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, “A New Counterblast”, in Atlantic Monthly, page 700:
"[I]n ten minutes more the sun was up, and blazing so fiercely, that we were glad to cool ourselves in fancy, by talking over salmon-fishings in Scotland and New Brunswick, and wadings in icy streams beneath the black pine-woods."
— 1871, Charles Kingsley, “The High Woods”, in At Last: A Christmas in the West Indies. […], volume I, London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, page 232:
"For a time she could not soothe nor convince him that it was fancy."
— 1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 221:
Explore More B1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
She has a ____ that she can win the lottery and travel the world.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
They went to a ____ restaurant for their anniversary, where the food was both tiny and expensive.