phantasm
/ˈfantaz(ə)m
/noun
1 literary An illusion, apparition, or ghost: the cart seemed to glide like a terrible phantasm...
- They thought He was a ghost, a phantasm, an apparition, a spirit, anything except their Master.
- ‘It was only a terrible phantasm trying to take root in my imagination,’ he reassured himself.
- The flickering shadows and darting phantasms on the walls reminded me exactly of some sights I once encountered in a cave in Spain, filled with art.
1.1 archaic An illusory likeness of something: every phantasm of a hope was quickly nullified
Derivatives
phantasmal
/ adjective ...- Some images of the film seem heightened, romantic, expressionist, oneiric (like the phantasmal image of Raynal struggling against the wind).
- The flicker of candlelight illuminated the darkened dining room, creating phantasmal shadows dancing upon the walls.
- The way the moonbeams hit his face made him look pale and phantasmal, like he was a just an illusion sitting there against that dripping tree.
phantasmic
- Furthermore, the images had a dreamlike or phantasmic quality to them, which supported this internal movement toward the imaginary.
- At stake is the consciousness of art as a simulating surface, a phantasmic veil of illusory life and presence that seeks to displace historical and physical reality rather than merely represent it.
- Samples of phantasmic voices whisper, hiss and appear to be darting and sliding invisibly from one spot to another throughout the room.
Origin
Middle English (in the sense 'deceptive appearance'): from Old French fantasme, via Latin from Greek phantasma, from phantazein 'make visible', from phainein 'to show'. The change from f- to ph- in the 16th century was influenced by the Latin spelling.