phantasm
(ˈfæntæz(ə)m)
Forms: α. 3 fantesme, 5–7 fantasme, 7, 9 fantasm. β. 6– phantasm, (7–8 phantasme).
[Orig. a. F. fantasme (OF. also -esme), ad. L. phantasma, a. Gr. ϕάντασµα: see next. From 16th c. gradually conformed to the Latin spelling with ph-.]
I. 1. a. gen. Illusion, deceptive appearance. Cf. phantom 1. Obs. or arch.
| a 1225 Ancr. R. 62 Louerd, seið Dauid, wend awei mine eien vrom þe worldes dweole, & hire fantesme [cf. Ps. cxix. 37]. 1460 Lybeaus Disc. 1432 Wyth fantasme, and fayrye, Thus she blerede hys yye. 1483 Caxton Gold. Leg. 289/1 The deuylle appered to them in guyse of a maronner in a shippe of fantasme. 1656 Stanley Hist. Philos. viii. (1701) 303/1 Phantasm is that, to which we are attracted by that frustraneous attraction, which happens in Melancholy, or Mad persons. 1860 Emerson Cond. Life, Illusions Wks. (Bohn) II. 446 'Tis all phantasm. |
b. With a and pl. An illusion, an appearance that has no reality; a deception, a figment; an unreal or imaginary being, an unreality; a phantom.
| 1426 Lydg. De Guil. Pilgr. 10890 Yt are but fantasmes that ye speke. 1483 Caxton Gold. Leg. 175 b/2 He [St. Germayn] dyd so many myracles that yf his merytes had not goon before they shold haue ben trowed fantasmes. 1614 Raleigh Hist. World i. xi. §8 They beleeve, and they beleeve amisse, because they be but Phantasmes or Apparitions. 1644 Milton Areop. 10 Or else it was a fantasm bred by the feaver which had then seis'd him. 1678 Cudworth Intell. Syst. i. ii. §8. 68 The Minds of men strongly possess'd with Fear, especially in the Dark, raise up the Phantasms of Spectres, Bug-bears, or affrightful Apparitions to them. 1778 F. Burney Evelina (1791) I. xxx. 156, I will not afflict you with the melancholy phantasms of my brain. 1843 Carlyle Past & Pr. ii. i, Peopled with mere vaporous Fantasms. 1843 Prescott Mexico (1850) I. 119 The allegorical phantasms of his religion, no doubt, gave a direction to the Aztec artist, in his delineation of the human figure. |
c. An illusive likeness (of something), a ‘ghost’ or ‘shadow’; a counterfeit.
| 1638 Baker tr. Balzac's Lett. (vol. II) 113 It is fit to stay ones selfe upon the true vertue, and not to follow the vaine Phantasmes of holinesse. 1699 Burnet 39 Art. xxvi. (1700) 297 If these are no true Sacraments which they take for such, but only the Shadows and the Phantasms of them. 1870 Disraeli Lothair xlviii, There is only one Church and only one religion, all other forms and phrases are mere phantasms. 1876 Geo. Eliot Dan. Der. lviii, Every phantasm of a hope was quickly nullified by a more substantial obstacle. |
† d. One who is not what he appears or pretends to be; a counterfeit, an impostor. Obs.
| 1622 Bacon Hen. VII 24 The People were in furie, entertayning this Airie bodie or phantasme [Lambert Simnel] with incredible affection. 1638 Baker tr. Balzac's Lett. (vol. II) 229 Farre from being a Plagiary, [he] refuseth that which is his own, and suffers a Phantasme, to receive those acclamations and praises which belong to himselfe. 1641 Milton Prel. Episc. 23 Rather to make this phantasme an expounder, or indeed a depraver of Saint Paul, then Saint Paul an examiner, and discoverer of this impostorship. |
2. An apparition, a spirit or supposed incorporeal being appearing to the eyes, a ghost. Now only poet. or rhet.
| c 1410 Love Bonavent. Myrr. xxvii. (1510) H iij b, The discyples supposynge that it had ben a fantasme cryed for drede. c 1550 Cheke Matt. xiv. 26 His discipils seing him walking on y⊇ see weer trobled saieng, y{supt} it was a phantasm. 1643 Sir T. Browne Relig. Med. i. §37 That those phantasms..do frequent Cemeteries, Charnel-houses, and Churches, it is because these are the dormitories of the dead. 1667 Milton P.L. ii. 744 Why..thou call'st Me Father, and that Fantasm call'st my Son? 1863 P. S. Worsley Poems & Transl. 7 Like the erring phantasm of a man Slain traitorously and cast into the deep. |
b. Psychics. The supposed vision or perception of an absent person, living or dead, presented to the senses or mind of another.
| 1884 Proc. Soc. Psychical Research I. v. 44 Phantasms, as we call them, in order to include under a term more general than phantoms, impressions which may be not visual only, but auditory, tactile, or purely mental in character. 1886 Gurney, etc. Phantasms of Living I. Introd. 35 We propose..to deal with all classes of cases where..the mind of one human being has affected the mind of another..by other means than through the recognized channels of sense. 1887 C. L. Morgan in Mind Apr. 281 Where..the phantasm includes details of dress or aspect which could not be supplied by the percipient's mind, Mr. Gurney thinks it may be attributed to a conscious or sub-conscious image of his own appearance..in the agent's mind, which is telepathically conveyed as such to the mind of the percipient. |
II. 3. Philos. A mental image, appearance, or representation, considered as the immediate object of sense-perception: as distinct (a) from the external thing represented, or (b) in Platonic philosophy, from the true form or essence, perceptible by thought only and not by sense.
| 1594 Carew Huarte's Exam. Wits iv. (1596) 38 Brute beasts with the temperature of their braine, and the fantasmes which enter thereinto by the fiue sences..partake those abilities. 1620 T. Granger Div. Logike 108 Memorie is a facultie of retaining well the phantasmes of things. 1669 Gale Crt. Gentiles i. iii. i. 19 Homer, and Hesiod..busied themselves about the phantasmes or pictures of Truth, but regarded not the Truth it self. 1751 Harris Hermes Wks. (1841) 221 It is then on these permanent phantasms that the human mind first works. 1785 Reid Intell. Powers i. i. 25 When they are objects of memory and of imagination, they get the name of phantasms. 1880 Academy 26 June 469 The phantasm or idea which awakens feeling in accordance with an appetence is not abstract but concrete and generally single. |
† b. An idea, a concept. Obs.
| a 1619 M. Fotherby Atheom. ii. ii. §8 (1622) 210 God is a fantasme, that can fill the fantasie. |
4. † a. Imagination, fancy. Obs.
| 1490 Caxton Eneydos xxii. 82 She saw also, to her semynge, two sonnes shynynge one by another, that presente hemself by symulacyon wythin the fantasme of her entendement. 1656 Ridgley Pract. Physick 252 Proceeding from a melancholic Phantasme. 1689 Evelyn Let. to Pepys 4 Oct., Y subject of my wild phantasme..naturally leading me to something which I lately mention'd. |
b. An imagination, a fancy: now always with emphasis on its unreality (cf. 1 b).
| 1672 Sir T. Browne Let. Friend §17 His Female Friends were irrationally curious so strictly to examine his Dreams, and in this low state to hope for the Fantasms of Health. 1738 H. Brooke Tasso i. 60 Ambitious phantasms haunt his idle brain. 1856 R. A. Vaughan Mystics I. Pref. 5 Is it well to recal from Limbo the phantasms of forgotten dreamers? |
5. attrib.
| 1831 Carlyle Sart. Res. i. iii, Visible and tangible objects in this phantasm world. 1843 ― Past & Pr. iii. i, From highest Phantasm apex to lowest Enchanted basis. 1871 Morley Carlyle in Crit. Misc. Ser. i. (1878) 180 Why then should not the royalist assume..that the Protector was a usurper and a ‘phantasm captain’? |