Mind & EmotionGreek → English
Phantom
/ˈfæntəm/noun
A ghost or illusion, or something felt to be present that is not there.
The Greek roots
φάντασμα
phántasma
apparition, image
Literally: “thing made visible”
Follow a root:φάντασμα3 words
The story of the word
Φάντασμα is from φαίνειν, to show, so the word names an appearance rather than a spirit. Middle English wrote it fantosme or fantome, straight from Old French, and the ph- was put back by sixteenth-century scholars tidying spellings toward Greek. Silas Weir Mitchell named phantom limb in 1871 after treating amputees from the American Civil War, which is the phrase that keeps the word in medical use.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Old French → English
- First recorded
- around 1300
Same family
fantasyphenomenonepiphanydiaphanous
In a sentence
The savings turned out to be a phantom, created by moving costs to another budget line.