phantom

phantom, n.
  (ˈfæntəm)
  Forms: α. 4–7 fantosme, 4–8 -om(e, (4 -oum, -eme, -ime, -umme, -on, faintum, 4–5 fantum, 6 fantone). β. 6–8 phantome, (7 -ôm(e), 7–8 phantosme, 7– phantom.
  [ME. fantosme, fantome, a. OF. fantosme (12th c. in Hatz.-Darm.) = Pr. fantasma, -auma, Cat. fantarma, Sp., It. fantasma:—L. phantasma, a. Gr. ϕάντασµα: see phantasma. (The o of the Fr. (and Eng.) form has not been satisfactorily accounted for.)]
  † 1. a. Illusion, unreality; vanity; vain imagination; delusion, deception, falsity. Obs.

a 1300 Cursor M. 55 Hit neys bot fantum [v.rr. fanton, fantom] for to say, To day it is, to moru away. Ibid. 22160 Wiþ iugulori þai sal be wroght, And fantum [v.rr. faintum, fantom] be, and elles noght. a 1300 E.E. Psalter iv. 3 Whi love yhe fantom [L. vanitatem] and lighinge speke? c 1384 Chaucer H. Fame i. 493 (Fairf. MS) Fro Fantome, and Illusion Me save. 1390 Gower Conf. III. 172 Josaphat was in gret doute, And hield fantosme al that he herde. c 1425 Hampole's Psalter Metr. Pref., Copyed has þis Sauter ben of yuel men of lollardry:..Hur fantom hath made mony a fon. c 1500 Melusine xli. 311, I byleue it is but fantosme or spyryt werke of this woman. 1692 R. L'Estrange Fables ccccxliv. (1714) 481 The whole Entertainment of his Life was Vision and Phantome.

  b. With a and pl. An instance of this; an illusion, a delusion; a deception; a figment, a lie. Obs.

c 1325 E.E. Allit. P. B. 1341 Honoured he not hym þat in heuen wonies, Bot fals fantummes of fendes, formed with handes. a 1340 Hampole Psalter, etc. 505 Þe deuyl sayd,..i. sall take þaim wiþ snarys of sere temptaciouns, and many fald errours & fantoms. c 1420 Avow. Arth. ii, This is no fantum, ne no fabulle. 1483 Cath. Angl. 122/2 A Fantum, fantasma. 1628 Wither Brit. Rememb. 155 The tricks And Fantosmes wherewithall our Schismaticks Abuse them⁓selves and others. 1686 tr. Chardin's Coronat. Solyman 50 The Express which they assure us to have been dispatched..is a meer Fantome.

  2. a. Something that appears to the sight or other sense, but has no material substance; an apparition, a spectre; a spirit, a ghost.

1382 Wyclif Matt. xiv. 26 Thei, seeynge hym walkynge aboue the see, weren distourblid, seyinge, For it is a fantum. c 1500 Melusine xli. 311 It is som spyryt, som fantosme or Illusyon that thus hath abused me. 1621 Molle Camerar. Liv. Libr. iv. ii. 265 An Abbesse in Spaine, whose place a phantosme held in the Church..while shee lay with a wicked spirit that maried her. 1693 Smallridge Jul. Cæsar in Dryden's Plutarch IV. 484 The Phantôm which appear'd to Brutus. 1746 Smollett Tears Scotl. 31 The pale phantoms of the slain Glide nightly o'er the silent plain. 1859 Tennyson Elaine 1016 Hark the Phantom of the house That ever shrieks before a death. 1887 Bowen Virg. æneid vi. 292 The phantoms are thin apparitions, clothed in a vain Semblance of form.

  b. Something having the form or appearance, but not the substance, of some other thing; a (material or optical) image of something.

1707 Curios. in Husb. & Gard. 325 When a Body is..reduc'd into Ashes, we find again in the Salts, extracted from its Ashes, the Idea, the Image, and the Phantom of the same Body. 1817 Shelley Rev. Islam vi. xxxiii. 5 As twin phantoms of one star that lies O'er a dim well, move, though the star reposes. 1819 ― Prometh. Unb. iii. iii. 52 The forms Of which these are the phantoms. 1856 T. B. Butler Philos. Weather iv. 63 (Funk) The thirsty wanderer is deluded by the phantom of a moving, undulating, watery, surface. 1882 P. G. Tait in Encycl. Brit. XIV. 582/1 Another curious phenomenon..the phantoms which are seen when we look at two parallel sets of palisades or railings, one behind the other... The appearance..is that of a magnified set of bars..which appear to move rapidly as we slowly walk past.

  c. fig. Applied to that which is a ‘vain show’, or to a person, institution, etc., that has the name and show of power but none of the substance, or to one which remains a ‘ghost of his (or its) former self’; a cipher. Cf. ghost n. 9.

1661 Evelyn Tyrannus 23 Exorcising these Apparitions and Fantosm's of a Court and Country. 1707 Reflex. upon Ridicule 75 The Husband is only a Fantom. 1781 Gibbon Decl. & F. xxxi. III. 260 The caprice of the Barbarians..once more seated this Imperial phantom [Maximus] on the throne. 1818 Hallam Mid. Ages (1872) II. vi. 131 They annihilated the phantom of authority which still lingered with the name of Khalif at Bagdad. 1874 Green Short Hist. viii. §6. 530 ‘If I granted your demands’, replied Charles, ‘I should be no more than the mere phantom of a king’. 1901 C. B. Mount in N. & Q. 15 June 465 This little phantom of a village [Temple, Cornwall]..dwindled to nothing..in the eighteenth century.

  3. a. A mental illusion; an image which appears in a dream, or which is formed or cherished in the mind; also, the thought or apprehension of anything that haunts the imagination.

1590 Spenser F.Q. ii. xii. 47 Who wondrous things concerning our welfare, And straunge phantomes doth lett us ofte foresee. 1706 Addison Rosamond ii. i, Farewel sorrow, farewel fear, They're fantoms all! 1758 Johnson Idler No. 32 ¶11 We suffer phantoms to rise up before us, and amuse ourselves with the dance of airy images. 1804 Wordsw. ‘She was a Phantom’, She was a Phantom of delight When first she gleamed upon my sight. 1849 De Quincey Eng. Mail Coach iii. v, Sister unknown..a thousand times, amongst the phantoms of sleep, have I seen thee entering the gates of the golden dawn. 1879 B. Taylor Stud. Germ. Lit. 127 There is the phantom of an implacable Fate behind all those dreadful deeds.

  b. The mental image or concept of an external object (considered as having a merely subjective existence).

1681 Glanvill Sadducismus i. (1682) 3 The notion they have of him is but a phantôme and conceit. 1842 Emerson Lect., Transcend. Wks. (Bohn) II. 280 How easy it is to show him [the Materialist] that he also is a phantom walking and working amid phantoms. 1865 Grote Plato II. xxv. 270 When you contemplate many similar objects, one and the same ideal phantom or Concept is suggested by all.

  4. The visible representative, image, or figure of some incorporeal person or body politic.

1690 Locke Govt. ii. xiii. §151 So [the supreme executor of the law] is to be consider'd as the Image, Phantom, or Representative of the Commonwealth.

  5. Technical uses. a. A model of an infant used in obstetric demonstrations: cf. manikin 2 c.

1882 in Ogilvie. 1902 Rep. Gen. Med. Council on Exam. Univ. Durham 17 Candidates were required to demonstrate on the ‘phantom’ the application of the forceps. 1904 Brit. Med. Jrnl. 10 Sept. 605 A good description is given of the various forms of ‘phantom’.

  b. Angling. An artificial bait made to resemble live-bait.

1883 Fisheries Exhib. Catal. 52 Patent Soleskin Phantoms, and Artificial Baits. 1892 G. R. Lowndes Camping Sk. 181 The ‘phantom’ had still less effect. Ibid. 207 Of a phantom the boss had no opinion at all.

  c. Telegr. and Teleph. An additional circuit obtained by using each of two other circuits as one of its two conductors, the two wires of each of the other circuits being effectively in parallel. Usu. attrib.

1883 G. Black in Operator & Electr. World 3 Feb. 71/1 The method of telephonic transmission was discovered by myself in 1878, while experimenting to get rid of telegraphic induction in telephones. I found that my apparatus gave me a new ‘phantom’ circuit over a telegraph wire. 1920 J. G. Hill Telephonic Transmission ix. 192 If one of the side circuits in a phantom circuit is out of order, the phantom necessarily fails with it. 1924 W. Aitken Automatic Telephone Syst. III. xlviii. 229 In using phantom or superimposed circuits on automatic systems great care must be exercised to prevent impulse and other currents in one physical circuit affecting the mate physical circuit by way of the phantom loop. 1943 A. L. Albert Fund. Telephony x. 258 A phantom circuit is obtained by repeating coils..installed at each end of two pairs of wires constituting the phantom group. This arrangement gives three telephone channels: one over each side circuit and one channel over the phantom circuit. 1957 W. Fraser Telecommunications v. 123 The additional circuits may be provided by utilising pairs of phantom circuits to produce other phantom circuits.

  d. Radiology. A life-size model of part of the body made of material which absorbs radiation in a similar way, used in investigations into the character and absorption of a beam of radiation.

1922 tr. Kroenig & Friedrich's Princ. Physics & Biol. Radiation Therapy i. 33 Perthes had to employ a solid substance, namely aluminium, as phantom material... These aluminium phantoms have general use in practice on account of their convenience. 1950 Walter & Miller Short Textbk. Radiotherapy iv. 99 Water is not always an ideal medium in which to insert small ionization chambers... A suitable phantom can be made of layers of pressed wood fibre which can be obtained of unit density. Suitable holes..enable the ionization chamber to be inserted. 1974 Rafla & Rotman Introd. Radiotherapy iii. 35/1 A plastic material.., which simulates water (and soft tissues), has been described. If such a material is placed around a bony skeleton, then a phantom that simulates the body with its bones more accurately than water alone can be built.

  6. appositive or adj. That is a phantom; merely apparent, spectral, illusive. Also in more general use: imaginary; false; devised by way of pretence, imitation, or deceit. (Sometimes hyphened.)

c 1425 Wyntoun Cron. vi. xviii. 2206 Syne þai herd, þat Makbeth aye In fantown Fretis had gret Fay. c 1450 St. Cuthbert (Surtees) 1861 Þe fantom fyre it vanyst sone. 1671 F. Phillips Reg. Necess. 478 To assert their phantosme or feigned soveraignty. 1726 Pope Odyss. xxii. 233 The adverse host the phantom-warrior ey'd. 1762 Kames Elem. Crit. xix. (1833) 344 Such phantom similes are mere witticisms. 1822–56 De Quincey Confess. Wks. 1897 III. 284 Phantom cavalry careered, flying and pursuing. 1850 S. Dobell Roman ii, Phantom ship to skim aërial waves Or desert mirage. 1872 Liddon Elem. Relig. ii. 47 That phantom-god who, as we are told, is only a pale reflection of human vanity. 1885 Kipling Phantom 'Rickshaw (1889) 25 The phantom 'rickshaw and I went side by side along the Chota Simla road in silence. 1897 W. B. Yeats Let. 24 Dec. (1954) 293 He did not come because of the phantom sore throat. 1909 Westm. Gaz. 19 Aug. 8/1 There was more phantom work on the Downs yesterday. 1927 H. Crane Let. 7 Jan. (1965) 283 The ‘ships’ [in a poem] should meet and pass in line and type—as well as in wind and memory, if you get my rather unique formal intentions in this phantom regatta seen from Brooklyn Bridge. 1931 Daily Express 28 Apr. 11/4 The ball was centred, and the eleven men, playing a phantom team, swept down the pitch to the unguarded goal. 1934 Sun (Baltimore) 5 Apr. 1/3 The steel industry was indulging in a monopolistic form of price boosting and price fixing which included the writing into its price structure of so-called ‘phantom’ freight rates which the consumer pays, but which find their way into the manufacturers' coffers and not those of the railroads. 1951 M. McLuhan Mech. Bride (1967) 143/2 They are not rooted in any concept of civilized society but are merely a blind drive toward the phantom security of subrational collectivism. 1952 Times 12 Dec. 12/3 Lot 90 was not a phantom beaver coat, or indeed a beaver coat at all, but a phantom racoon coat. 1958 Times 29 Sept. 13/1 The duvetyn coat with a phantom beaver collar. 1976 National Observer (U.S.) 29 May 9/2 A ‘phantom’, or dummy, fluorescent tube that reduces the amount of electricity used by standard two-tube fixtures.

  7. attrib. and Comb. a. Simple attrib., as phantom-land, phantom-nation, phantom-shape, phantom-tribe, phantom-warning; phantom-life; b. similative, as phantom-fair, phantom-white adjs.; objective, as phantom-chaser; also phantom-like adj. and adv.; phantom-wise adv.

1954 Koestler Invisible Writing ii. 34 The *phantom-chaser..who discovers Helen's image in each beloved face.

1855 Tennyson Daisy 65 *Phantom-fair Was Monte Rosa.

a 1849 J. C. Mangan Poems (1859) 42 Roams the *phantomland for ever.

1907 Folk-Lore June 147 Cuchulain was recalled to *phantom-life on one occasion by St. Patrick.

c 1820 S. Rogers Italy, Venice 141 *Phantom-like, vanish with a dreadful scream. 1860 T. Martin Horace 55 Before thee evermore doth Fate Stalk phantomlike.

1725 Pope Odyss. x. 627 The *Phantome-nations of the dead.

c 1820 S. Rogers Italy (1839) 70 Two *phantom-shapes were sitting side by side.

1812 W. Tennant Anster F vi. lxxix, Oberon, the silver-scepter'd fay, That rules his *phantom-tribes with gentle force.

1850 Tennyson In Mem. xcii, Tho' the months..Should prove the *phantom-warning true.

1871 ‘L. Carroll’ Through Looking-Glass 223 Still she haunts me, *phantomwise.

  8. Special combinations and collocations: phantom corn, phantom corpuscle: see quots.; phantom-fish, the transparent young of the common conger; phantom flesh: see quot.; phantom-larva, the transparent larva of a dipterous fly of the genus Corethra; phantom limb, a sensation of the presence of an amputated limb; phantom minnow (cf. 5 b); phantom pain, pain perceived as in a phantom limb; phantom tumour, a rounded abdominal swelling of temporary nature having the appearance of an actual tumour.

1674 Ray N.C. Words, *Fantome corn, lank or light Corn... Phantosme Corn is Corn that has as little bulk or solidity in it as a Spirit or Spectre.

1899 J. Cagney tr. Jaksch's Clin. Diagn. vii. (ed. 4) 258 They [i.e. red-blood corpuscles in urine] may retain their proper form, or they may appear as pale yellowish rings (*phantom corpuscles of Traube).

1879 Bull. Essex Inst. (Cent. Dict.), Conger eels and their curious transparent young—*phantom fish—are occasionally seen.

1674 Ray N.C. Words, *Fantome flesh, when it hangs loose on the Bones.

1900 Miall & Hammond Harlequin Fly ii. 78 The *phantom-larva (Corethra), which poises itself in the middle depths of clear water.

[1872 S. W. Mitchell Injuries of Nerves xiv. 349, I recently faradised a case of disarticulated shoulder... As the current affected the brachial plexus of nerves, he suddenly cried aloud, ‘Oh, the hand, the hand!’ and attempted to seize the missing member. The phantom I had conjured up swiftly disappeared.] 1879 G. H. Lewes Probl. Life & Mind (ser. 3) II. 336 The ‘*phantom limb’, of which Weir Mitchell speaks, is only one detail in the general picture mentally formed of the body. 1937 Lancet 8 Aug. 314/1 After amputation it was usual for the patient to experience sensations as if his limb were still present. These phantom limbs might be painless or painful. 1955 Sci. News Let. 13 Aug. 104/3 Phantom limb pains, a troublesome affliction in amputation cases, and pains in amputation stumps can be relieved in many cases by ultrasound treatment. 1974 Nature 26 Apr. 731/1 Phantom limbs occur in 95 to 100% of all poeple who have had a limb or part of a limb amputated.

1883 Fisheries Exhib. Catal. 212 Flexible Minnows..Caledonian Minnows..*Phantom Minnows. 1900 Daily News 13 Oct. 8/2 A bewildering ‘eenstrument’, as the Highland gillie called a phantom minnow.

1960 I. A. Stanton Dict. for Med. Secretaries 115/2 *Phantom pain. 1964 N.Y. State Jrnl. Med. LXIV. 2907/2 Many theories have been advanced to explain the mechanism of phantom pain. 1973 Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) 11 Apr. 34/7 It's pretty weird to have a pain in a foot that has been amputated... The person [is] suffering from ‘phantom pains’ as they are called.

1857 Sir T. Watson Princ. & Pract. Physic (ed. 4) II. lxvii. 415 The tumour which she had presented to the notice of the surgeon was what has been called a *phantom tumour. 1897 Allbutt's Syst. Med. II. 1137.

  Hence (mostly nonce-words) ˈphantom v. trans., to haunt as a phantom; phantoˈmatic [cf. phantasmatic] a., phantom-like, unreal; phanˈtomic, phanˈtomical adjs., of the nature of or resembling a phantom; phanˈtomically adv., as or in the form of a phantom; ˈphantomish a., akin to or suggestive of phantoms; ˈphantomishly adv. (in 5 fantomysliche), in the manner of or by means of phantoms; ˈphantomry, phantoms collectively; ˈphantomship, the personality of a phantom.

1899 Harper's Mag. Feb. 356, I had tried..the cure-all of hard work, but there was that ghost of the heart *phantoming everything sadly.

1818 Coleridge in Lit. Rem. (1836) I. 177 The love of Adam and Eve in Paradise is..not *phantomatic, and yet removed from every thing degrading.

1877 T. Sinclair Mount (1878) 63 Their libraries of volumes..are but *phantomic.

1687 A. Behn Emperor of Moon ii. i, Whether they appear'd in solid bodies, or *fantomical, is yet a question.

1882 Gd. Words 602 Thus she appeared *phantomically [pr. -mimically] to her slumbering parents.

1832 Blackw. Mag. May 803/1 The time was late, the place was *phantomish.

c 1420 Chron. Vilod. st. 1142 Þus visiones nere not *fantomysliche ydo.

1835 Anster tr. 2nd Pt. Faustus iii. (1887) 159 Did the anguish of my spirit Shape the wild *phantomry?

1713 C'tess of Winchilsea Misc. Poems 22 Of her *Phantomship requested, To learn the Name of that close Dwelling. 1853 E. S. Sheppard Ch. Auchester xvi. (1875) 68 This ghost of an aphorism stalked forth from my brain,..and to lay its phantomship, I am compelled to submit it to paper.

  
  
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   Add: [2.] d. ellipt. for phantom limb (see sense 8 below).

1872 [see phantom limb, sense 8 below]. 1920 Practitioner CIV. 83 There has been an idea for a long time that the sensations along a nerve were ‘projected’ into the phantom, and there seems to be some truth in this. 1954 L. Gillis Amputations xvi. 363 The narcissistic inability to renounce the integrity of the body, and the impossibility of adaptation to a sudden defect, are not sufficient explanation of a phantom. 1987 A. Campbell Acupuncture ii. 25 Phantoms..are not necessarily undesirable; in fact..a phantom limb is necessary if an artificial limb is to be used, but phantoms may be excruciatingly painful.

  
  
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   Add: 2. Telegr. and Teleph. To implement by the use of a ‘phantom’ circuit (phantom n. 5 c); to transmit (a signal) in this way. Now rare.

1920 J. G. Hill Telephonic Transmission ix. 191 On the two pairs of each quad a third circuit may be super-imposed or phantomed. 1923 T. E. Herbert Telephony xxvi. 830 Telegraphs are phantomed on telephone repeatered trunks. 1949 Wireless World Nov. 415/1 The d.c. potentials being ‘phantomed’ across the audio-frequency circuits. 1957 Encycl. Brit. XIX. 901/1 Around 1900 the principle of ‘phantoming’ two pairs of wires was introduced.

Oxford English Dictionary