Fancy
Fancy is an older literary term for the mind's quick, inventive power to combine images, comparisons, and unexpected details. In earlier criticism it was often used much like imagination, but Romantic writers sometimes distinguished fancy as a lighter, more decorative faculty that rearranges existing impressions rather than creating deep new vision.
Because the word has shifted in meaning over time, it can refer either to imaginative invention in general or, in Romantic criticism, to a more surface-level kind of ornament.
Example
The poem's fancy turns a row of streetlights into a necklace of small moons, while the dark street below stays unchanged.
Related Definitions
[n] fancy was held by Coleridge to be more casual and superficial than imagination
[n] something many people believe that is false; "they have the illusion that I am very wealthy"
[n] a predisposition to like something; "he had a fondness for whiskey"
[adj] not plain; decorative or ornamented; "fancy handwriting"; "fancy clothes"
[v] 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] have a fancy or particular liking or desire for; "She fancied a necklace that she had seen in the jeweler's window"
Links
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Synonyms
aureate, baroque, battlemented, busy, castellated, castled, churrigueresco, churrigueresque, crackle, crenelate, crenelated, crenellate, crenellated, damascene, damascened, damask, dressy, elaborate, embattled, envision, fanciful, fantasy, figure, flamboy
Related Terms
a bit much, abandoned, account as, adept, admiration, adoration, adorned, adroit, affection, affinity, agape, aim at, ambitious, Amor, animus, apparition, appetence, appetency, appetite, apprehension, approve, apt, arabesque, ardency, ardor, artistic, ass