MEANING
1. Imaginative and inventive, or not grounded in fact; sometimes whimsical, improbable, or impractical.
2. Not based on reliable fact or practical possibility; imagined, improbable, or unrealistic.
Use it for
Use for creative invention or an idea that seems too fanciful to be credible.Give an image or idea a playful imaginative quality, or signal that a claim seems implausible.
Words that belong together
- fanciful tale
- fanciful design
- fanciful notion
- fanciful theory
- fanciful explanation
- fanciful proposal
On the page
Her fanciful map gave every alley a name borrowed from a different constellation.
The engineer rejected the fanciful proposal to power the bridge with moonlight.
Nearby words
Opposite meanings
Word forms
- Base
- fanciful
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Usage notes
Can praise playful imagination or criticize an idea as unsupported or impractical; context determines the sense. Sense 2: In this sense, fanciful is critical: the idea is unsupported or impractical, not merely imaginative.
Practice this word in a sentenceYour margin notes
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