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FANTASTIC
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Dictionary entry overview: What does fantastic mean?
• FANTASTIC (adjective)
The adjective FANTASTIC has 5 senses:
1. ludicrously odd
2. extraordinarily good or great; used especially as intensifiers
3. fanciful and unrealistic; foolish
4. existing in fancy only
5. extravagantly fanciful in design, construction, appearance
Familiarity information: FANTASTIC used as an adjective is common.
Dictionary entry details
Sense 1
Meaning:
Ludicrously odd
Synonyms:
antic; fantastic; fantastical; grotesque
Context example:
a grotesque reflection in the mirror
Similar:
strange; unusual (being definitely out of the ordinary and unexpected; slightly odd or even a bit weird)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Extraordinarily good or great; used especially as intensifiers
Synonyms:
fantastic; grand; howling; marvellous; marvelous; rattling; terrific; tremendous; wonderful; wondrous
Context example:
a tremendous achievement
Similar:
extraordinary (beyond what is ordinary or usual; highly unusual or exceptional or remarkable)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Fanciful and unrealistic; foolish
Synonyms:
fantastic; wild
Context example:
a fantastic idea of his own importance
Similar:
unrealistic (not realistic)
Derivation:
fantasy (imagination unrestricted by reality)
Sense 4
Meaning:
Existing in fancy only
Synonyms:
fantastic; fantastical
Context example:
fantastic figures with bulbous heads the circumference of a bushel
Similar:
unreal (lacking in reality or substance or genuineness; not corresponding to acknowledged facts or criteria)
Derivation:
fantasy (imagination unrestricted by reality)
Sense 5
Meaning:
Extravagantly fanciful in design, construction, appearance
Context example:
Gaudi's fantastic architecture
Similar:
fancy (not plain; decorative or ornamented)
Context examples
What more could you want? This is fantastic!
(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)
To him they were frankly imaginative and fantastic, though invested with all the glamour of the real, wherein lay their power.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
“I think, Watson,” he remarked at last, “that of all our cases we have had none more fantastic than this.”
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Alleyne smiled as he wondered what fantastic and wondrous deed would be exacted from him.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Our whole scheme might seem fantastic if laid before a magistrate.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
I was through it, when a sudden fantastic impulse came upon me, and I went back to my successful rival, who looked nervously at the electric push.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
His face, his manner, the large waves and sweeps of his white hands, his easy air of superiority, his fantastic fashion of talk, all filled me with interest and wonder.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
"In course!" he exclaimed, with a twang of voice and a distortion of features equally fantastic and ludicrous.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
The liver is also a fantastic place for intervention because one can then prevent that person from getting malaria by stopping parasites from coming out of their liver.
(New way to stop falciparum malaria transmission, SciDev.Net)
The results were nothing short of fantastic: A star eight times heavier than the sun was orbiting a 70-solar-mass black hole every 79 days.
(Unpredicted stellar black hole discovered by astronomers, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)
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