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fanciful

[fan-si-fuhl]

Example Sentences Origin

adjective

characterized by or showing fancy; capricious or whimsical in appearance: a fanciful design of butterflies and flowers.

suggested by fancy; imaginary; unreal: fanciful lands of romance.

led by fancy rather than by reason and experience; whimsical: a fanciful mind.

Origin:
1620–30; fancy + -ful

Related forms

fan·ci·ful·ly, adverb

fan·ci·ful·ness, noun

o·ver·fan·ci·ful, adjective

o·ver·fan·ci·ful·ly, adverb

o·ver·fan·ci·ful·ness, noun

EXPAND

un·fan·ci·ful, adjective

COLLAPSE

Synonyms
2. visionary, baseless, illusory.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Fanciful is always a great word to know.

So is quincunx. Does it mean:

an arrangement of five objects, as trees, in a square or rectangle, one at each corner and one in the middle.

a children's mummer's parade, as on the Fourth of July, with prizes for the best costumes.

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Example Sentences

Middle school girls are transforming their lockers with fanciful decorations.

Barthes wants to have it both ways: photographs as magical and mundane, fanciful and factual.

Better to keep people ignorant of the past and to concentrate their minds upon the fanciful utopia that lies ahead.

EXPAND

Middle school girls are transforming their lockers with fanciful decorations.

Barthes wants to have it both ways: photographs as magical and mundane, fanciful and factual.

Better to keep people ignorant of the past and to concentrate their minds upon the fanciful utopia that lies ahead.

These animals can be fanciful but must show evidence of special adaptations to the conditions in which they live.

But lightning flickers above thunderstorms too, where the ghostly flashes have such fanciful names as elves and sprites.

Each corner of her house displays evidence of her talent for creating an ambience both fanciful and romantic.

The iWatch is as fanciful a design as you could wish for.

Plenty of people get away with using fanciful names.

Unfortunately, the skill of learning how to learn from consequences is manifest as fanciful fictional mysticism.

Thoughts ranged in wilder and more fanciful directions.

These maps were generally simple and sometimes fanciful.

The moons are exaggerated in this artist's fanciful conception.

Such critics aren't describing libertarianism, but their own fanciful creation.

Interior decorators and paint manufacturers, among others, are constantly coming up with ever more fanciful color names.

Better to maintain this record, surely, than to devise fanciful ways of correcting it.

But the science behind high-octane sweets is anything but fanciful.

But fanciful speculation aside, perhaps some future telescope will be able to give us additional details.

Comic-Con is a fanciful celebration of all things ink and spandex.

The rumour is as telling as it may turn out to be fanciful.

My eyes scan cognac-colored boots made of hand-sewn leather and fanciful boots with gold-leather accents.

Horgan criticizes transhumanism and calls it fanciful but gives absolutely no evidence or arguments to support that claim.

It didn't even have to have a fanciful moniker that trips off the tongue and cutely embeds a synonym for friend.

It is a large tent, with fanciful minarets, and a red carpet to make it cosy.

Signs can entertain with overkill and fanciful images.

They have to keep pace with the state of the art in fanciful awesomeness and maybe sell a few toys.

Now this fanciful dream is taking its first tentative steps towards reality.

Bhutan's traditional culture is full of fanciful lore that stretches back centuries.

What is less fanciful is the southerners' determination.

It would be fanciful to suggest that rainwater harvesting can resolve all water problems.

Bonus points for commenters who explain the connexions, fanciful or otherwise, between the two.

As things now stand, a peaceful election is fanciful.

If the plan is to offer the banks a brief shelter in a storm, it looks fanciful.

In a continent where frontiers and people are famously ill matched, such a prospect is not altogether fanciful.

But yesterday, a fanciful version of those venerable sales vehicles.

But he also made a string of fanciful claims that alienated sceptics all the.

In the fanciful example above, the needle is the word.

Stern, whose department is co-sponsoring a fanciful foray into.

In this febrile mix, the tales about the source of some rumours sound almost as fanciful as the rumours themselves.

Dim and fanciful visions of the twinkling fire planet have led to panoramic close-ups beautiful beyond imagining.

Most fanciful and peculiar dresses are constantly to be seen.

The first is the statement that it s human to underestimate the time it takes for fanciful technologies to arrive.

Buchwaldek has been pretty busy bringing fanciful creations from the pages of sci-fi to life.

The film works best when it forgets such fanciful touches and simply sticks to the facts.

It's far more likely, however, that a child who could stay awake through this fanciful reality game show.

Finally, it seems fanciful if not hubristic to argue that private aid can fix failed political systems.

Love's work, scampering and parading across the stage in fanciful costumes.

For them, the playground is a fanciful environment, a creation of sophisticated design.

In embellishing this fiction the author has seen fit to employ the fanciful detail of the original and more.

It is fanciful to imagine that immigration will decrease.

But her evidence is razor-thin, her argument fanciful and unconvincing.

It is within commonsense and does not require a fanciful story.

The idea that agreement to all of this is on the cards is fanciful in my opinion.

By mandating compliance, they end up with a certain number of people who fill out the form, but fill it out with fanciful data.

It is bordering on the fanciful to suggest that chemical companies develop crops that will use less chemicals.

And the idea of human population numbers declining to insignificance is fanciful.

COLLAPSE

Collins

World English Dictionary

fanciful (ˈfænsɪfʊl)

—*adj*
1.	not based on fact; dubious or imaginary: fanciful notions
2.	made or designed in a curious, intricate, or imaginative way
3.	indulging in or influenced by fancy; whimsical

'fancifully

—*adv*

'fancifulness

—n

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

fanciful

1620s, from fancy + -ful. Related: Fancifully.

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Matching Quote

"Girls are apt to imagine noble and enchanting and totally imaginary figures in their own minds; they have fanciful extravagant ideas about men, and sentiment, and life; and then they innocently endow somebody or other with all the perfections for their daydreams, and put their trust in him."

-Honoré De Balzac

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