ornamental; decorative; not plain: a cake with a fancy icing.
tending or intending to impress: a fancy degree in geophysics;fancy four-syllable words.
complicated or difficult to perform or execute: a couple doing some fancy footwork on the dance floor.
depending on imagination or caprice; whimsical; irregular: a fancy conception of time.
made, designed, grown, adapted, etc., to please the taste or fancy; of superfine quality or exceptional appeal: fancy goods; fancy fruits.
bred to develop points of beauty or excellence, as an animal.
much too costly; exorbitant or extravagant: a consultant who charges fancy fees.
noun,pluralfan·cies.
imagination or fantasy, especially as exercised in a capricious manner.
the artistic ability of creating unreal or whimsical imagery, decorative detail, etc., as in poetry or drawing.
a mental image or conception: He had happy fancies of being a famous actor.
an idea or opinion with little foundation; illusion: Her belief that she can sing is a mere fancy.
a caprice; whim; vagary: It was his fancy to fly to Paris occasionally for dinner.
capricious preference; inclination; a liking: to take a fancy to walking barefoot in the streets.
critical judgment; taste.
the breeding of animals to develop points of beauty or excellence.
the fancy,Archaic. people deeply interested in a sport, art, etc.
Obsolete. sexual love.
verb (used with object),fan·cied,fan·cy·ing.
to form a conception of; picture to oneself: Fancy living with that egotist all your life!
to believe without being absolutely sure or certain: I fancy you are my new neighbor.
to take a liking to; like: I really fancy the spotted one in that litter.
to want or desire: I fancy another piece of cake.
to breed to develop a special type of animal.
interjection
Also fancy that . (used as an exclamation of mild surprise): They invited you, too? Fancy!
Verb Phrases
fancy up,to make superficially showy by way of improvement: an old car fancied up with a bright new paint job.
Origin of fancy
First recorded in 1400–1450; Middle English fan(t)sy, syncopated variant of fantasie fantasy
SYNONYMS FOR fancy
10 thought, notion, impression, idea; phantasm.
12 quirk, humor, crotchet.
5 fine, elegant, choice.
1 decorated, ornate.
18 envision, conceive, imagine.
SEE SYNONYMS FOR fancy ON THESAURUS.COM
synonym study for fancy
9. Fancy,fantasy,imagination refer to qualities in literature or other artistic composition. The creations of fancy are casual, whimsical, and often amusing, being at once less profound and less moving or inspiring than those of imagination: letting one's fancy play freely on a subject; an impish fancy.Fantasy now usually suggests an unrestrained or extravagant fancy, often resulting in caprice: The use of fantasy in art creates interesting results. The term and concept of creative imagination are less than two hundred years old; previously only the reproductive aspect had been recognized, hardly to be distinguished from memory. “Creative imagination” suggests that the memories of actual sights and experiences may so blend in the mind of the writer or artist as to produce something that has never existed before—often a hitherto unperceived vision of reality: to use imagination in portraying character and action.
historical usage of fancy
Fancy is a 15th-century contraction of fantasy or phantasy.Fantasy comes from Old French phantasie, fantasie “imagination, imaginative faculty, a work of the imagination,” which in turn comes from Late Latin phantasia “idea, notion, fancy, imagined experience or set of circumstances, mere fancy or semblance.” In the Vulgate (the Latin version of the Bible, prepared chiefly by Saint Jerome at the end of the 4th century), phantasia also means “apparition, phantom.” The original meaning of fancy, “individual preference or liking, arbitrary inclination,” as in “to take a fancy to someone,” was only one of several meanings of Middle English fantasie, a technical word in the psychology of scholasticism (the system of theological and philosophical teaching and disputation predominant in the Middle Ages, based chiefly upon the authority of the Bible, of the church fathers, and of Aristotle and his pagan, Christian, Muslim, and Jewish commentators). The adjective fancy, meaning “fine, ornamental,” did not appear until 1753; it developed from attributive use of the noun in the sense “designed to please the taste or fancy.”
We want to have the fancy, nice things but often discover that having the fancy, nice things usually means someone has to pay.
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To make a deepfake, you don’t need a fancy computer or even a ton of knowledge about software.
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It covers the review of all documents first by the lender, then separately by the borrower’s “settlement agent,” a fancy term for his or her lawyer.
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Figuring this all out takes some fancy math, but it’s something an electronic calculator can easily manage.
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Portable bathroom options, which range from simple bag setups for fast and light backpacking to fancy full-flush contraptions for long-term campground stays, can help.
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They're also proof that no matter how fancy you are, you can't escape the urge to watch two girls make out.
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To get the product from manufacturer to arm, the product is lyophilized (a fancy word for freeze dried).
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This fancy spice pack pairs with four different spirits—vodka, tequila, aquavit, and gin—to ensure the perfect morning pick-me-up.
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I fancy Holmes would have destroyed those theories with nothing more than his intuition.
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Yet her work is all heart, her flights of fancy rich with nostalgia without being mawkish.
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Do you fancy he would get23 another call from her, or from her friends through her influence?
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That we shall some day smile at a fancy makes the present pain none the less poignant.
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A higher place is taken in his work by the longest poem he sends his brother in the same metre, Fancy.
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Now she reproached herself because she could not immediately silence this fancy of disturbed nerves.
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Fancy that he fired in the air, and you've fought a duel, Giles.'
Oliver Twist, Illustrated|Charles Dickens
British Dictionary definitions for fancy
fancy
/ (ˈfænsɪ) /
adjective-cieror-ciest
not plain; ornamented or decorativea fancy cake; fancy clothes
requiring skill to perform; intricatea fancy dance routine
arising in the imagination; capricious or illusory
(often used ironically) superior in quality or impressivea fancy course in business administration
higher than expectedfancy prices
(of a domestic animal) bred for particular qualities
nounplural-cies
a sudden capricious idea; whim
a sudden or irrational liking for a person or thing
the power to conceive and represent decorative and novel imagery, esp in poetry. Fancy was held by Coleridge to be more casual and superficial than imaginationSee imagination (def. 4)
an idea or thing produced by this
a mental image
taste or judgment, as in art of dress
Also called: fantasy, fantasiamusica composition for solo lute, keyboard, etc, current during the 16th and 17th centuries
the fancyarchaicthose who follow a particular sport, esp prize fighting
verb-cies, -cyingor-cied(tr)
to picture in the imagination
to suppose; imagineI fancy it will rain
(often used with a negative)to likeI don't fancy your chances!
(reflexive)to have a high or ill-founded opinion of oneselfhe fancied himself as a doctor
informalto have a wish for; desireshe fancied some chocolate
Britishinformalto be physically attracted to (another person)
to breed (animals) for particular characteristics
interjection
Also: fancy that!an exclamation of surprise or disbelief