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FANCIFUL
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I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Indulging in or influenced by fancy
Example:
all the notional vagaries of childhood
Synonyms:
fanciful; notional
Classified under:
Similar:
creative; originative (having the ability or power to create)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Having a curiously intricate quality
Example:
a fanciful pattern with intertwined vines and flowers
Classified under:
Similar:
fancy (not plain; decorative or ornamented)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Not based on fact; existing only in the imagination
Example:
to create a notional world for oneself
Synonyms:
fanciful; imaginary; notional
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
unreal (lacking in reality or substance or genuineness; not corresponding to acknowledged facts or criteria)
Context examples:
This set him talking of the great world of London, telling my father about the men who were his masters at the Admiralty, and my mother about the beauties of the town, and the great ladies at Almack’s, but all in the same light, fanciful way, so that one never knew whether to laugh or to take him gravely.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
The idea of Edward's being a clergyman, and living in a small parsonage-house, diverted him beyond measure;—and when to that was added the fanciful imagery of Edward reading prayers in a white surplice, and publishing the banns of marriage between John Smith and Mary Brown, he could conceive nothing more ridiculous.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
But it is more than ten years since Henry Jekyll became too fanciful for me.
(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
“I am afraid I am sometimes very fanciful and troublesome.”
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
I am not a fanciful person, but I give you my word that I seemed to hear Moriarty’s voice screaming at me out of the abyss.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
But under this difficulty, as under all the other difficulties of my journey, I seemed to be sustained and led on by my fanciful picture of my mother in her youth, before I came into the world.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Now Emma was obliged to think of the pianoforte; and the remembrance of all her former fanciful and unfair conjectures was so little pleasing, that she soon allowed herself to believe her visit had been long enough; and, with a repetition of every thing that she could venture to say of the good wishes which she really felt, took leave.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
It is surely rather fanciful.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
The idea of those Devonshire girls, among the dry law-stationers and the attorneys' offices; and of the tea and toast, and children's songs, in that grim atmosphere of pounce and parchment, red-tape, dusty wafers, ink-jars, brief and draft paper, law reports, writs, declarations, and bills of costs; seemed almost as pleasantly fanciful as if I had dreamed that the Sultan's famous family had been admitted on the roll of attorneys, and had brought the talking bird, the singing tree, and the golden water into Gray's Inn Hall.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
