fantastic

[fan-tas-tik]

adjective

1. extraordinarily good; excellent.

   a fantastic restaurant.

2. Also fantastical

   1. conceived or appearing as if conceived by an unrestrained imagination; odd and remarkable; bizarre; grotesque.

      The most fantastic rock formations are visible from the high plateau of the park’s rim trail.

      Artists rendered fantastic designs in the margin of the manuscript.

   2. fanciful or capricious, as persons or their ideas or actions.

      We never know what that fantastic creature will say next.

   3. imaginary or groundless in not being based on reality; foolish or irrational.

      You can’t let these fantastic fears of yours control your life.

   4. extravagantly fanciful; marvelous.

      The scenery and lighting they created for the dream sequences are truly fantastic!

   5. incredibly great or extreme; exorbitant.

      The rich are spending fantastic sums of money, even in this economy.

   6. highly unrealistic or impractical.

      They hatched a fantastic scheme to make a million dollars betting on horse races.

fantastic

/ fænˈtæstɪk /

adjective

1. strange, weird, or fanciful in appearance, conception, etc

2. created in the mind; illusory

3. extravagantly fanciful; unrealistic

   fantastic plans

4. incredible or preposterous; absurd

   a fantastic verdict

5. informal,  very large or extreme; great

   a fantastic fortune

   he suffered fantastic pain

6. informal,  very good; excellent

7. of, given to, or characterized by fantasy

8. not constant; capricious; fitful

   given to fantastic moods

noun

1. archaic,  a person who dresses or behaves eccentrically

Other Word Forms

• fantastically adverb
• fantasticalness noun
• fantasticality noun
• superfantastic adjective
• superfantastically adverb
• unfantastic adjective
• unfantastically adverb

Word History and Origins

Origin of fantastic¹

First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English fantastik “pertaining to the imaginative faculty,” from Medieval Latin fantasticus, variant of Late Latin phantasticus, from Greek phantastikós “able to present the appearence (of something),” derivative of phantázein “to make present to the eye or mind” (akin to phānós “light, bright,” phaínein “to bring to light, cause to appear”) + -tikos -tic

Word History and Origins

Origin of fantastic¹

C14 fantastik imaginary, via Late Latin from Greek phantastikos capable of imagining, from phantazein to make visible

Synonym Study

See bizarre.

Example Sentences

Bringing any team up from the Championship to the Premier League is a fantastic achievement.

Read more on BBC

“This is a fantastic place for the Russians to be. They need to do very little here. All their responses show they don’t feel much need to hurry things along,” she said.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

"I have had the pleasure of meeting this family, they are fantastic people who give all they can back to the community," Ms McCole said.

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"How she'd woven all the music that we'd recorded in and out of her tracks. It really is a fantastic album."

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Two veterans of independent music made fantastic albums by digging deeper into their characteristic styles and finding something new.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• absurd 
• crazy 
• exotic 
• fanciful 
• grotesque 
• imaginative 
• implausible 
• incredible 
• insane 
• ludicrous 
• odd 
• outlandish 
• preposterous 
• ridiculous 
• singular 
• unbelievable 
• unreal 
• weird