Art & MusicGreek → English
Phantasmagoria
/ˌfantazməˈɡɔːrɪə/noun
A shifting, dreamlike sequence of images, real or imagined.
The Greek roots
φάντασμα
phántasma
apparition, phantom
ἀγορά
agorá
assembly, gathering place
Literally: “gathering of phantoms”
The story of the word
This was a stage show before it was a metaphor. Around 1801 Parisian magic-lantern operators projected skeletons and ghosts onto smoke and gauze in a disused convent, and the London version of 1802 imported the name with the spectacle. The second element is usually read as agora, the public gathering, though some etymologists take it as a suffix invented for the sound alone.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → French coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1802
Same family
phantomfantasyagoraphobiaphase
In a sentence
The last act dissolves into a phantasmagoria of masks and flickering light.
Fever turned the night into a phantasmagoria he could only half remember.