Mind & EmotionGreek → English
Phantasm
/ˈfæntæzəm/noun
An illusory figure or mental image taken for something real.
The Greek roots
φάντασμα
phántasma
apparition, appearance
Literally: “thing that appears”
Follow a root:φάντασμα3 words
The story of the word
φάντασμα is what shows itself without being there: a ghost, a dream image, the shade a mourner reaches for and cannot hold. Latin took the word whole, Old French wore it down to fantosme, and English ended up keeping both the worn form, phantom, and the re-Latinised one, phantasm. Philosophy held on to a third sense, the mental picture the mind works from, which is why Aquinas has the intellect abstracting from phantasms rather than from things.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Old French → English
- First recorded
- 13th century
Same family
phantomfantasyphenomenonemphasisdiaphanous
In a sentence
The fever left him arguing with phantasms in the corner of the room.
Every retelling of the battle turned the enemy into a phantasm.