phantasmal
/fænˈtæzməl/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.49 in modern English
17
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
3
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Of or pertaining to, or having the characteristics of, a phantasm (“something seen but having no physical reality”); imaginary, unreal.
Example Sentences
- "The matter of which dreams are made / Not more endowed with actual life / Than this phantasmal portraiture / Of wandering human thought."
- "Mr. Audley, the chairman, was an amiable, elderly man who still wore Gladstone collars; he was a kind of symbol of all that phantasmal and yet fixed society."
- "[H]e had heard about him the constant voices of his father and of his masters, urging him to be a gentleman above all things and urging him to be a good catholic above all things. […] And it was the din of all these hollowsounding voices that made him halt irresolutely in the pursuit of phantoms. He gave them ear only for a time but he was happy only when he was far from them, beyond their call, alone or in the company of phantasmal comrades."
- "Her secrets: old feather fans, tassled dancecards, powdered with musk, a gaud of amber beads in her locked drawer. […] Phantasmal mirth, folded away: muskperfumed."
Etymology
From phantasm or phantasma (“phantasm”) + -al (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining to’ forming adjectives).
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /fænˈtæzməl/
- British English: /fænˈtæzml̩/