fancy
Definitions
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Fancy Table -
WordNet 3.6
- adj fancy not plain; decorative or ornamented "fancy handwriting","fancy clothes"
- v fancy imagine; conceive of; see in one's mind "I can't see him on horseback!","I can see what will happen","I can see a risk in this strategy"
- v fancy have a fancy or particular liking or desire for "She fancied a necklace that she had seen in the jeweler's window"
- n fancy a kind of imagination that was held by Coleridge to be more casual and superficial than true imagination
- n fancy something many people believe that is false "they have the illusion that I am very wealthy"
- n fancy a predisposition to like something "he had a fondness for whiskey"
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Additional illustrations & photos:
Fancy Picture of Hanwellian Admirer of the Ibsenesque Drama thoroughly enjoying himself
FANCY PORTRAIT
ONE TRUNK TOOK MY FANCY
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
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- Fancy A sort of love song or light impromptu ballad. "At a great book sale in London, which had congregated all the fancy ."
- Fancy Adapted to please the fancy or taste, especially when of high quality or unusually appealing; ornamental; as, fancy goods; fancy clothes.
- Fancy An image or representation of anything formed in the mind; conception; thought; idea; conceit. "How now, my lord ! why do you keep alone,
Of sorriest fancies your companoins making ?" - Fancy An opinion or notion formed without much reflection; caprice; whim; impression. "I have always had a fancy that learning might be made a play and recreation to children."
- Fancy Extravagant; above real value. "This anxiety never degenerated into a monomania, like that which led his [Frederick the Great's] father to pay fancy prices for giants."
- Fancy Inclination; liking, formed by caprice rather than reason; as, to strike one's fancy ; hence, the object of inclination or liking. "To fit your fancies to your father's will."
- Fancy That which pleases or entertains the taste or caprice without much use or value. "London pride is a pretty fancy for borders."
- Fancy The faculty by which the mind forms an image or a representation of anything perceived before; the power of combining and modifying such objects into new pictures or images; the power of readily and happily creating and recalling such objects for the purpose of amusement, wit, or embellishment; imagination. "In the soul
Are many lesser faculties, that serve
Reason as chief. Among these fancy next
Her office holds." - Fancy To believe without sufficient evidence; to imagine (something which is unreal). "He fancied he was welcome, because those arounde him were his kinsmen."
- Fancy To figure to one's self; to believe or imagine something without proof. "If our search has reached no farther than simile and metaphor, we rather fancy than know."
- Fancy To form a conception of; to portray in the mind; to imagine. "He whom I fancy , but can ne'er express."
- Fancy To have a fancy for; to like; to be pleased with, particularly on account of external appearance or manners. "We fancy not the cardinal."
- Fancy To love.
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Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
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- n fancy The productive imagination, especially as exercised in an unregulated, desultory, or capricious manner; the power or the act of forming in the mind images of unusual, impossible, odd, grotesque, whimsical, etc., combinations of things. See imagination.
- n fancy The result or product of an exercise of the fancy; a fanciful image or conception of the mind; a representation in thought, speech, or art of anything ideal or imaginary: as, a pleasing fancy or conceit.
- n fancy An idea or opinion formed upon slight grounds or with little consideration; a speculative belief in the possibility or reality of something untried or unknown; an impression, supposition, or notion: as, that's a mere fancy.
- n fancy Productive or operative taste; design; invention.
- n fancy Inclination; liking; fondness: as, that which suits your fancy.
- n fancy Something that pleases or entertains without necessarily having real use or value.
- n fancy A short, impromptu musical piece, usually instrumental; a fantasy.
- n fancy One of the ornamental tags or aglets attached to the points in the seventeenth century.
- n fancy A fancy roller (which see, under II.).
- n fancy Any class of people who cultivate a special taste; fanciers collectively.
- n fancy Synonyms Fantasy, etc. See fantasy and imagination.
- n fancy Conceit.
- n fancy Penchant, bias, vagary, whimsey.
- fancy Involving fancy; of a fanciful or imaginary nature; ideal; illusory; notional; dictated by or dependent on the fancy: as, a fancy portrait; fancy prices; fancy strokes or touches.
- fancy Fine; elegant; ornamental; adapted to please the taste or fancy (as a trade-epithet); of superfine quality: as, fancy stationery; fancy flour.
- fancy As commonly used, articles of show and ornament, not including valuable jewelry, but including appliances of dress less useful than ordinary textile materials or garments made of them, as women's collars, ruffles, ties, and the like, and such articles as inkstands, paper-weights, card-receivers, button-hooks, etc., of ornamental design.
- fancy To form a fancy or an ideal conception of; imagine.
- fancy To believe with little or no reason; imagine; suppose; presume: as, he fancies that he is ill; I fancy you will fail.
- fancy To take a fancy to; like; be pleased with.
- fancy To breed or raise, with reference to pleasing the fancy; produce as a fancier.
- fancy To have or form a fancy or an ideal conception; believe or suppose without proof; imagine.
- fancy To love.
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Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary
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- n Fancy fan′si that faculty of the mind by which it recalls, represents, or makes to appear past images or impressions: an image or representation thus formed in the mind: an unreasonable or capricious opinion: a whim: capricious inclination or liking: taste:
- adj Fancy pleasing to, or guided by, fancy or caprice: elegant or ornamental
- v.t Fancy to portray in the mind: to imagine: to have a fancy or liking for: to be pleased with: to breed animals:—pr.p. fan′cying; pa.p. fan′cied
- n Fancy fan′si (Shak.) love
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Quotations
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“All charming people, I fancy, are spoiled. It is the secret of their attraction.” -
“I have a great mind to believe in Christianity for the mere pleasure of fancying I may be damned.” -
“Communists are people who fancied that they had an unhappy childhood.” -
“Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion, and he whose real wants are supplied must admit those of fancy.” -
“Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, but not expressed in fancy; rich not gaudy; for the apparel oft proclaims the man.” -
“Facts have a cruel way of substituting themselves for fancies. There is nothing more remorseless, just as there is nothing more helpful, than truth.”
Idioms
Tickle your fancy - If something tickles your fancy, it appeals to you and you want to try it or have it.
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Etymology
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
Contr. fr. fantasy, OF. fantasie, fantaisie, F. fantaisie, L. phantasia, fr. Gr. appearance, imagination, the power of perception and presentation in the mind, fr. to make visible, to place before one's mind, fr. to show; akin to , , light, Skr. bhā,to shine. Cf. Fantasy Fantasia Epiphany Phantom
Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary
Contracted from fantasy.
Usage
In literature:
I fancy he was a fine young fellow, but not particularly good-looking.
"Roger Ingleton, Minor" by Talbot Baines Reed
I fancy he wouldn't be sorry.
"The Willoughby Captains" by Talbot Baines Reed
I can fancy I see you reeling under this blow!
"The Master of the Shell" by Talbot Baines Reed
He fancied that she had, for there was the faintest trace of amusement in her eyes.
"The Gold Trail" by Harold Bindloss
Mrs Nixon'll give 'em some nettle-beer if they fancy it.
"Clayhanger" by Arnold Bennett
Fancy you flying with white wings!
"In the Eastern Seas" by W.H.G. Kingston
I hadn't got far, however, before I fancied I heard some one coming.
"Dick Cheveley" by W. H. G. Kingston
I can easily fancy the interest we excited on shore, yet nothing could be thought of to help us.
"Hurricane Hurry" by W.H.G. Kingston
Yet at the time I fancy I scarcely thought about it.
"Will Weatherhelm" by W.H.G. Kingston
And I fancy up to now she has had her own way in everything.
"The Dash for Khartoum" by George Alfred Henty
To drown these fancies, Sybilla rushed into every amusement which her secluded life afforded.
"Olive A Novel" by Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
They always wore every fancy thing they had to a dance, but in actual war, they were unpainted and almost naked.
"Old Rail Fence Corners" by Various
As for the ship, he had taken a downright fancy to her.
"The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson" by Robert Louis Stevenson
One evening she came over to discuss a costume for a fancy-dress garden-party.
"Hope Mills" by Amanda M. Douglas
I had fancied that the house had nothing sadder to show me than her face.
"From Sea to Sea" by Rudyard Kipling
Fancy living with those terrible old women at Clapton, hearing nothing but whispers of hell-fire.
"Carnival" by Compton Mackenzie
They also spoke of the doctor's love of intrigue, and of his affecting to sympathize with the queen in all her extravagant fancies.
"On the Heights" by Berthold Auerbach
I could hear every word through the slight partition, and I held my breath, for I even fancied they must hear how my heart was beating.
"L'Arrabiata and Other Tales" by Paul Heyse
George had not fancied the revolution had unfurled banners so easily discernible.
"The Guarded Heights" by Wadsworth Camp
It depends upon whether they retire in rotation or sell out, I fancy.
"Johnny Ludlow, Fifth Series" by Mrs. Henry Wood
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In poetry:
For there was laughter in his eye,
And health was on his cheek,
I fancy that he's standing by,
And almost hear him speak.
And health was on his cheek,
I fancy that he's standing by,
And almost hear him speak.
"On The Death of a Child" by James McCauley
O'er that mother's rugged features
Thou art throwing Fancy's veil,
Light and soft as woven moonbeams,
Beautiful and frail
Thou art throwing Fancy's veil,
Light and soft as woven moonbeams,
Beautiful and frail
"To ------," by John Greenleaf Whittier
Fancy paints with hues unreal,
Smile of bliss, and sorrow's mood;
If they both are but ideal,
Why reject the seeming good?
Smile of bliss, and sorrow's mood;
If they both are but ideal,
Why reject the seeming good?
"Song~" by Ann Radcliffe
Though fancy and the might of rhyme,
That turneth like the tide,
Have borne me many a musing time,
Beloved, from thy side.
That turneth like the tide,
Have borne me many a musing time,
Beloved, from thy side.
"To My Wife" by Archibald Lampman
Ah, gentle sir! love's not a dream
Of fancied vision bright;
But rather like a limpid stream
That's running day and night.
Of fancied vision bright;
But rather like a limpid stream
That's running day and night.
"Love" by Benjamin Cutler Clark
"And when I met with foreign dames
Of grace and beauty rare--
I fancied one dear village girl
Like them: but oh! how fair!
Of grace and beauty rare--
I fancied one dear village girl
Like them: but oh! how fair!
"Vignette - IV" by Matilda Betham
In news:
A maker of fancy menswear survives a century.
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen' floats on feathery fancy.
Gallardo won first place in the fancy fiddle finals and Rachel Crawford was second.
Lennie Tucker's Saturday letter in reply to Mary Armstrong's letter urging her to go out and have fun, buy fancy outfits, etc.
Though the romantic couple had specific family ties in mind, those who fancy plants might wonder the same thing.
Louis has no lack of high-priced, über-fancy recording studios or DIY basements with ProTools rigs.
It's also described as an "imaginative architectural creation," which is fancy speak for the fact that the designer was likely a fan of 'The Flintstones .
A) Will having a new fancy grocery store in the area relieve the wrap-around-the-store lines at Trader Joe's.
New Nugget Andre Iguodala shows some fancy footwork on big shot.
Russell Wilson's fancy footwork lets offense take flight.
Celebrity dancers show off their fancy footwork for a good cause.
Eastern's Adams fancy footwork always on display.
Was that a Charm City Cake at last Friday's fancy cocktail party at the State Department in DC.
Chinese official fired for smiling at crash site, wearing fancy watches.
Apple's Fancy New Store In Palo Alto Is Insanely Noisy (AAPL).
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In science:
Nor did I try to place uniform emphasis on the various topics covered in these notes. I just picked up topics that caught my fancy and on which I have some hands-on experience and discussed them in a pedagogic style.
An Introduction to Monte Carlo Simulation of Statistical physics Problem
As a matter of fact, the last term of Eq. (6) gives rise to a fancy phase factor; however, the configuration-space curl of the resulting vector potential is vanishing: no destabilizing force arises.
Quantum randomness emerging under gravitational nonlinearity
This actually argues in favor of the LFSR method, since it is better to know and to control the de(cid:12)ciencies of a random number generator than to rely on fancy methods which are basically justi(cid:12)ed by empirical observations.
Pseudo Random Coins Show More Heads Than Tails
Fixed points contributions. A rank 1 torsion-free sheaf on C2 is a fancy name to call an ideal I of C[x, y ].
Random partitions and instanton counting
The former has somewhat fancifully been named the “Blue’s function” (known also under other names in literature), while the latter will more conservatively be called the “N –transform.” These two functions are fundamental ob jects within the FRV approach, see below.
Applying Free Random Variables to Random Matrix Analysis of Financial Data. Part I: A Gaussian Case
If the higgs boson does indeed exist by Mother Nature’s own choice, and not by the theorists’ fancies however imaginative and elegant their intellectual inventions may be, it will be discovered at the LHC.
A Pedestrian Introduction to the Mathematical Concepts of Quantum Physics
This is true because Cont does not speak about “any fancy subset” of the quantities, but just about those “physically meaningful” sets which can be defined in the language of our (physical) theory.
A logic road from special relativity to general relativity
But then, these measurements have predetermined outcomes: the world is deterministic and realism is nothing but a fancy word for determinism.
Is realism compatible with true randomness ?
The more fancy local models are needed since the spaces have to incorporate analytical limiting behaviors, like bubbling-off and breaking of tra jectories, which cannot be satisfactorily described in the classical set-up of manifolds.
Applications of Polyfold Theory I: The Polyfolds of Gromov-Witten Theory
While it does not seem there is anything logically inconsistent in this result, it can be phrased in terms of fanciful thought experiments that lead to unsettling conclusions.
Bubble collisions and measures of the multiverse
Nonrenormalizability of Einstein’s theory and renormalizability of a quadratic Lagrangian suggests that a classical limit (to be defined when quantum theory of gravity will become a fact rather than a fancy) of quantum gravity may be a theory with dynamics more complicated than that of general relativity.
Universality of Einstein's General Relativity
The tie-up between H∞ and A∞ in our approach is not prompted by random fancy.
Bringing Up a Quantum Baby
Raman scattering by itself cannot be invoked to justify more fancy terms such as ring-exchange terms for these systems.
Two-magnon Raman scattering in insulating cuprates: Modifications of the effective Raman operator
While his presentation was totally unrelated to QCD, Landsberg presented perhaps the most fancy transparencies seen at this conference.
Moriond QCD 2002: Theoretical Summary
This is equivalent to a mapping from the geometric realization |X | of X to a fancy version of the Volodin K-theory space of the ring R.
Twisting cochains and higher torsion
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