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Fanciful   /fˈænsɪfəl/   Listen
Fanciful

adjective
1.
Indulging in or influenced by fancy.  Synonym: notional.  "All the notional vagaries of childhood"
2.
Not based on fact; unreal.  Synonyms: imaginary, notional.  "A small child's imaginary friends" , "To create a notional world for oneself"
3.
Having a curiously intricate quality.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Fanciful" Quotes from Famous Books



... coined that phrase: 'The Melting-Pot,' the title to his play caught the popular fancy of a shibboleth-crazy nation, and provided pap for the fanciful, for the theorists, for the flabby idealists and doctrinaires. If I melt lead and iron and copper and silver and gold in the same pot, I get a bastard metal, do I not? It is not, as a fused product, worth a tinker's hoot. Why, even Zangwill is not an advocate of the melting-pot. He is a Jew, proud ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne

... "You mustn't get fanciful," I declared. "Men die every day, you know, and I fancy that this one was on his last ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... sight?—as his old nurse entirely and his mother half, believed, or, as Dr. O'Farrell asserted, some abnormal development of his subconscious self. All three were ruefully aware that Timmy was often—well, his mother called it "sly," his sister called it "fanciful," his nurse by the good ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes

... as sinecures had been largely given to persons who had held public offices of business, it was thought necessary to institute pensions to an amount not exceeding one-half of the reduction. In 1816 a private member, named Curwen, brought forward a fanciful scheme of his own for the amendment of the poor laws, which in effect anticipated modern projects of old age pensions. He obtained the appointment of a select committee, which reported in 1817, but their proposals were thoroughly inadequate, and no ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... craters; the dark blotches, seas. At that time scientists still accepted the theory of oceans on the moon. What interested Marie most of all, however, was the question, "Were there people on the moon?" Ludwig promised to procure for her the fanciful descriptions of a supposed journey made to the moon by some naturalists in the preceding century. Innocent enough reading ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai

... it above the heats and storms of the lower regions. Others transported the garden beyond the equinoctial line and placed it in the southern hemisphere; supposing that the torrid zone might be the flaming sword appointed to defend its entrance against mortals. They had a fanciful train of argument to support their theory. They observed that the terrestrial paradise must be in the noblest and happiest part of the globe; that part must be under the noblest part of the heavens; as the merits of a place do ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... for actual accomplishment the balloonists, the advocates of lighter-than-air machines, took the lead at first. It is customary and reasonable to discard as fanciful the various devices and theories put forward by the experimenters in the Middle Ages and fix the beginning of practical aeronautical devices with the invention of hot-air balloons by the Montgolfiers, of ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot

... interesting as they give us some idea of the nature of the young poet's mind. Poe had what may be called a scientific mind, infused through and through with poetry. At times he was exact, keen-minded, and patient as the scientist; then again he wandered away into mere fanciful suggestion of things that "never were on land or sea." His scientific turn we see in his detective stories; his poetic nature we see struggling against this intellectual exactness in ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody

... is a difference indeed, but then, you know, one can't help feeling that it is fanciful. It is very delightful to imagine the mountains to be alive; ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin

... the longest spur into the valley of Kashmîr. The remarkably clear tilt of the strata probably suggested this fanciful and poetical legend. All the mountains mentioned in the tale are prominent peaks in Kashmîr, and belong to what Cunningham (Ladâk, 1854, ch. iii.) calls the Pîr Panjâl and Mid-Himâlayan Range. Nangâ Parbat, 26,829 ft., is to the N.W.; Harâ Mukh, 16,905 ft., to the ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel

... of the King of France as an event which outraged every sentiment of religion, justice, and humanity; and as the effect of principles which started by dissolving all the bonds of society, and which, relying on fanciful theories, rejected not only the experience of past ages, but likewise the sacred instructions of revelation. Pitt stated that the British government had from the commencement adopted a system of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... the ex pede Herculem. We can imagine the colouring, especially of the serpents and back-ground, to have been impressive. The picture is in the possession of the Emperor of Russia. The "Puck" is a somewhat mischievous boy—too substantially, perhaps heavily, given for the fanciful creation. The mushroom on which he is perched is unfortunate in shape and colour; it is too near the semblance of a bullock's heart. His "Cardinal Beaufort," powerful in expression, has been, we think, captiously reprehended ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various

... originally a deification of nature, or a denial of the sovereignty of God. Those pure elements and primitive essences of created nature offered to the first men, still in a close communication with the Deity, not a likeness of resemblance, nor a mere fanciful image or a poetical figure, but a natural and true symbol of Divine power. Everywhere in the Hebrew writings the pure light or sacred fire is employed as an image of the all-prevading and all-consuming power and omnipresence of the Divinity. His breath was the source of life; and ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... theory of his which he would have liked to test on a large scale: culture through environment, complete regeneration even, the improvement, the salvation of the individual, physically as well as morally. She owed to him undoubtedly the best part of her nature; she guessed how fanciful and violent she might have become, while he had made her only ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola

... general. I imagined I had read Burton and Speke through, fairly well, and that consequently I had penetrated the meaning, the full importance and grandeur, of the work I was about to be engaged upon. But my estimates, for instance, based upon book information, were simply ridiculous, fanciful images of African attractions were soon dissipated, anticipated pleasures vanished, and all crude ideas began ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... The first distinct recognition of this important physical law, according to McCulloch (Introduction to "Wealth of Nations," lv), was in a fanciful work of two volumes, entitled "Principes de tout gouvernement," published in 1766: "Quand les cultivateurs, devenus nombreux, auront defriche toutes les bonnes terres; par leur augmentation successive, et par la continuite du defrichement, il se trouvera un point ou il sera plus avantageux a un ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... ill-mannered, or vicious, or dull—indeed, he could be remarkably interesting. But I received the impression that there could be no human creature whom he would not sacrifice in the pursuit of his schemes, in his task of imposing himself and his will upon the world. Perhaps that was fanciful, but I think not altogether so. However, the point is that Mabel, I am sorry to say, was very unhappy. I am nearly twice your age, my dear boy, though you always so kindly try to make me feel as if we were contemporaries—I am getting to be an old man, and a great ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley

... answer was a low, meaning laugh, and when he had finished his song, she played on and on and on. Sonata, bravura, fantasia, rondo; a crash and whirl—rapid, swift, sweet, brilliant, cold; no feeling, no pathos. A fanciful person might have traced something of exultation and defiance, in those dashing, rippling ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch

... friend: "Florestan and Eusebius are my double nature, which I would gladly—like Raro—melt down into one man." As time passed however, he made less and less use of these fanciful images until they finally seemed to fade out ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower

... is a fanciful little creature. He did sleep rather heavily. I think it was the heat; but he is all right now, and waiting to welcome you in the supper-room. Won't you let me show you the way to your room? You would like to wash your ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade

... as though from something partly spectral. I had moments when I thought of him as of a man of pasteboard—as though, if one should strike smartly through the buckram of his countenance, there would be found a mere vacuity within. This horror (not merely fanciful, I think) vastly increased my detestation of his neighbourhood; I began to feel something shiver within me on his drawing near; I had at times a longing to cry out; there were days when I thought I could have struck him. This frame of mind was doubtless helped by shame, because ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson

... her it was a fanciful delusion. Her nervous organization was no longer under the control of reason. Esther gave a quick scream, and fell to ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various

... mere mineral water may, under certain conditions, assume the outward form of organic bodies—so this mineral substance, carbonate of lime, hidden away in the bowels of the earth, has taken the shape of these chambered bodies. I am not raising a merely fanciful and unreal objection. Very learned men, in former days, have even entertained the notion that all the formed things found in rocks are of this nature; and if no such conception is at present held to be admissible, it is because long and varied experience has now shown that mineral ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... and the Canaries are modern, and resemble only big toothsticks. But 'dragons' proper have existed, and perhaps memories of these portents long lingered in the brain of protohistoric man. Even if they had been altogether fabulous, the fanciful Hellenic mind would easily have created them. The Dragoeiro with its boa-like bole, its silvery, light-glancing skin, and its scars stained with red blood, growing in a wild garden of glowing red-yellow oranges, would easily ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... after Mary was liberated, she found a portion of her people; and when they first saw her, they were much alarmed, judging from her fanciful, brilliant habiliments that she was some celestial visiter. But hearing their own language addressed to them, the parentage of the girl, and the cause of her absence, they became gradually calm, and curiosity took the place of fear, and ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various

... and through the new British colonies, and not been struck with the many mountain-locked valleys which abound! Valleys as fertile and pleasant as any in the legends of fairy tale; or, to be less fanciful in simile, as bright in being and as difficult of approach as Afridi Tirah in early autumn. Such a valley we found within the outer barrier of Minie Kloof. A valley small in its proportions, it is true, but none the less fertile. A dainty brook of crystal ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer

... cabbage. Some expressions of truth are reminiscent,—others merely sensible, as the phrase is,—others prophetic. Some forms of disease, even, may prophesy forms of health. The geologist has discovered that the figures of serpents, griffins, flying dragons, and other fanciful embellishments of heraldry, have their prototypes in the forms of fossil species which were extinct before man was created, and hence "indicate a faint and shadowy knowledge of a previous state of organic existence." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various

... at Carthage and Thapsus, where the wall had to be carried across a flat space, the wall of defence was doubled, or even tripled. The restorations of Daux[654] contain, no doubt, a good deal that is fanciful; but they give, probably, a fair idea of the general character of the so-called "triple wall" of certain Phoenician cities. The outer line, or {proteikhisma}, was little more than an earthwork, consisting of ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson

... deer; but there is no bear, wolf, or wildcat skin, for on these the foot of a woman must never tread! They are for men, and symbolical of manly virtues. There are dolls of all sizes, and a play travois leans against the white wall of the miniature lodge. Even the pet pup is called in to complete the fanciful home ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... has ever known; and although it is now over thirty years since it commenced, astronomers are still divided into two parties—one accepting the lines as demonstrated facts, the other either denying their existence, or endeavouring to explain them away by various more or less ingenious or fanciful theories. ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks

... to adopt this mode of treatment, from the desire we experience from time to time, when considering the general views of nature, to escape from the circle of more strictly dogmatical modern opinions, and enter the free and fanciful domain ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt

... him? But he was full of the wonders of travel, the strangeness of the new world and the new people. Niagara had shaken him to the soul, he told me; on the wings of its thunder he had soared to the empyrean. How his fanciful turns of expression come back to me as I write of him! He was proud of his English, which was in ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

... general name of the Hippocratic writings. Though composed, like the genuine remains of the physician of Cos, in the Ionian dialect, all of them differ from these in being more diffuse in style, more elaborate in form, and in studying to invest their anatomical and medical matter with the fanciful ornaments of the Platonic philosophy. Hippocrates had the merit of early recognizing the value of facts apart from opinions, and of those facts especially which lead to general results; and in the few genuine writings which are now extant it is easy to perceive that he has recourse to the simplest ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... revery, which soothes and lulls, one gazes with ecstasy on the fanciful details of the sculptures which vanish in the groined roof above, and on the quaint pipes of the organ with its hundred voices. The beliefs of childhood piously inculcated in your heart suddenly reawaken; a vague perfume of incense again penetrates the air. The stone pillars ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz

... Her own dress was of the coarsest materials and the most sombre hue, with only that one ornament—the scarlet letter—which it was her doom to wear. The child's attire, on the other hand, was distinguished by a fanciful, or, we may rather say, a fantastic ingenuity, which served, indeed, to heighten the airy charm that early began to develop itself in the little girl, but which appeared to have also a deeper meaning. We may speak further of it hereafter. Except for that small expenditure in the ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... hung heavy on my mind were only the morbid, fanciful thoughts of the hour, here was a man whose society would dissipate them. I resolved to try the experiment, and accepted ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins

... which women should be so grateful as to refrain from asking for anything else. The military functions performed by men, and so often perverted to most atrocious uses, have never been more than the equivalent for the function of child-bearing imposed by nature upon women. It is not a fanciful nor sentimental, it is an exact and just equivalent. The man who exposes his life in battle, can do no more than his mother did in the hour she bore him. And the functions of maternity persist, and will persist, to the end of time,—while the calls to arms are becoming ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson

... baking atmosphere. On high ground, the reflection from the chalk-hills was blinding. It was cruel to urge the crippled horses, but it had to be done in order to make Damascus Saturday night. We saw ancient tombs and temples of fanciful architecture carved out of the solid rock high up in the face of precipices above our heads, but we had neither time nor strength to climb up there and examine them. The terse language of my note-book will answer for the rest ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... Peshitto,' because I am content with the companionship of some of the very first Syriac scholars, and with the teaching given in an unanswered article in the Church Quarterly Review for April, 1895. Nor except in passing do I remark upon a fanciful censure of my account of the use of papyrus in MSS. before the tenth century—as to which the reviewer is evidently not versed in information recently collected, and described for example in Sir E. Maunde ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon

... loved fable and allegory. Argument or truth, dressed out in such fanciful garb, gained double force and acceptance. We may not be able to follow a poet in his wanderings; his local allusions may obscure to us much of his meaning; the doctrine of his allegory may be to us ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson

... and saw in it a face, a woman's face. She began to scorn the country in the fanciful intoxication of the drug. That face swung in the sky; then it sang, it sang with a well-known voice the alleluia ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant

... about him, in addition to his own—giving parties of the most gorgeous magnificence—splendid masques in honour of a birthday, like Comus at Ludlow Castle—bird-huntings, where ladies, with attendant squires, sallied forth in fanciful array, armed with silken nets to catch the prey, after having wiled them from the trees by blinding them with polished mirrors—horns sounding, and music stationed in woody dells—and all carried on with a grandeur like the cavalcades of the duke and duchess in Don Quixote. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... "Don't be fanciful, Miss Saunders. You will have to look deeper than that for the spell which has been cast over my wife. Olympia afraid of creaks and groans? Olympia seeing sights? She's much too practical by nature, Miss Saunders, to say nothing of the fact that she would certainly ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green

... plan eagerly and one of them agreed to pay the expenses of a hall any time we wished to use one for campaign purposes. At first our efforts passed unnoticed by either political party. It was thought to be just another fanciful civic dream. We were glad of it. It gave us time to perfect ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton

... indeed these feelings break out into overt acts, rage takes their place, and will be plainly exhibited. Painters can hardly portray suspicion, jealousy, envy, &c., except by the aid of accessories which tell the tale; and poets use such vague and fanciful expressions as "green-eyed jealousy." Spenser describes suspicion as "Foul, ill-favoured, and grim, under his eyebrows looking still askance," &c.; Shakespeare speaks of envy "as lean-faced in her loathsome case;" and in ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin

... material phenomena. Thales, seeing that plants are sustained by dew and rain, concluded that water was the first beginning of things. Anaximenes, seeing that animals die without air, thought that air was the great primal cause. Then Diogenes of Crete, making a fanciful speculation, imparted to air an intellectual energy. Heraclitus of Ephesus substituted fire for air. None of the illustrious Ionians reached anything higher, than that the first cause of all things must be intelligent. The speculations of succeeding ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord

... use at this time among the Japanese were far less seaworthy than those of European nations. The accompanying figures given by Charlevoix, although probably somewhat fanciful, show the impractical character of the vessels of ...
— Japan • David Murray

... embalmed, according to Cassien, because during the time of the annual inundation no interments could take place, but it is more than likely that this hypothesis is entirely fanciful. It is said by others they believed that so long as the body was preserved from corruption the soul remained in it. Herodotus states that it was to prevent bodies from becoming a prey to animal voracity. "They did not inter them," says he, "for fear of their ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow

... after an age of watching that made his eyes hot and weary, he caught a swift, almost fanciful, yet undoubted flash of light at a porthole in the quarter. It was the sort of flash that would be seen through an imperfectly curtained porthole of a stateroom if the door from the lighted saloon were quickly opened ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle

... illuminated the place with a rich glow from all the globes of the newell chandelier, spread a bright rug before the fire, set a circling row of chairs (pink ones and dove-colored) and in the midst a low invalid-table covered with a fanciful cloth and laden with the presents—a pink azalia in lavish bloom from Rosa; a gold inscribed Russia-leather bible from Patrick and Mary; a gold ring (inscribed) from "Maggy Cook;" a silver thimble (inscribed with motto and initials) from ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... of morphology, else he would never have uttered his annihilating verdict on it, else he would not continually designate the study of the theory of descent as dilettanteism and vain dreaming, as "a fanciful private speculation which is now making its way in several departments of natural science." In truth, Virchow does me greatly too much honour when he designates as my "personal crotchet" an idea which for the last ten ...
— Freedom in Science and Teaching. - from the German of Ernst Haeckel • Ernst Haeckel

... themselves for one of the magnificent Hungarian dances, which the emperor's court at Vienna had transplanted to the camp of Wallenstein, and thence to all the great houses of Germany. Bevies of noble women, in every variety of fanciful costume, but in each considerable group presenting deep masses of black or purple velvet, on which, with the most striking advantage of radiant relief, lay the costly pearl ornaments, or the sumptuous jewels, so generally significant in those times of high ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... poetry is the purest truth. To learn whether any thing is as it ought to be, we have only to learn whether it is truly poetical. It is a popular fallacy to suppose that poetical things are necessarily fanciful, or imaginative, or sentimental in other words, that poetry resides in that which is both baseless and valueless. In the popular thought, poetry is shut out of the realm of truth and reality. The reason, ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb

... and grapes of this graceful and fanciful alphabet are worked in veined and slightly raised satin stitch, the tendrils in point russe; for these the ...
— Beeton's Book of Needlework • Isabella Beeton

... he asked. "Is it a garment, a jewel, a fanciful ornament which only boys and girls may wear upon a summer's holiday? May we take it or leave it, as we please? Wear it, if it shows well upon our beauty, or cast it off for others to put on when we limp aside out of the race of fashion to halt ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford

... Eustace Macallan) was my niece. She was the only child of my sister, and she lived under my roof after the time of her mother's death. I objected to her marriage, on grounds which were considered purely fanciful and sentimental by her other friends. It is extremely painful to me to state the circumstances in public, but I am ready to make the sacrifice if the ends ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins

... was habitually assured by Manbos, by enchantment, under the direction of the priestesses in the lofty mountain fastnesses of Mandyaland.[17] No other explanation will satisfy the credulous Manbo. He can not possibly understand how the fanciful and elegant designs on Mandya cloth can be produced ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... the fanciful eloquence of Cassiodorus, the variety of sea and river fish are an evidence of extensive dominion; and those of the Rhine, of Sicily, and of the Danube, were served on the table of Theodoric, (Var. xii. 14.) The monstrous ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... pipes, especially those of modern date are exceedingly fanciful in shape and resemble somewhat the pipes used by the Persians. Many of them are made of clay and are sold very cheap.[54] The Chinese use a variety of pipes but all of them have small bowls for the tobacco. Some of their pipes are made ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings

... [270] A fanciful name constructed from [Greek: nephele], a cloud, and [Greek: kokkux], a cuckoo; thus a city of clouds and cuckoos.—Wolkenkukelheim[*] is a clever approximation in German. Cloud-cuckoo-town, perhaps, is ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... steps toward the East River, Fremont turned about and glanced with varying emotions at the brilliant scene he was leaving. He was parting, under a cloud, from the Great White Way and all that the fanciful title implied. He loved the rush and hum of the big city, and experienced, standing there in the night, a dread of the silent places he was soon to visit under ...
— Boy Scouts in Mexico; or On Guard with Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson

... apologise," said Syme. "I know your passion for law and order," and he stepped into the passage lined with the steel weapons. With his long, fair hair and rather foppish frock-coat, he looked a singularly frail and fanciful figure as he walked down that ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton

... It was a fanciful thought, but she yielded to it. Besides, there was Diogenes! She must make sure of his warmth and comfort before ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey

... it, presented a pretty exact outline of the great pyramid of Cheops. Like other rocks, along the shore, it seemed to be incrusted with calcareous cement. This striking feature suggested a name for the lake, and I called it Pyramid Lake; and though it may be deemed by some a fanciful resemblance, I can undertake to say that the future traveler will find much more striking resemblance between this rock and the pyramids of Egypt than there is between them and the object from which ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James

... ever a fanciful and idle air, perhaps the reader will suppose them written in the shade of a Sunny Day, in the midst of the objects of which they treat, and will like them none the worse for having such influences of the ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... in May, but early in the morning, Laurel Ammidon lay in bed considering two widely different aspects of chairs. The day before she had been eleven, and the comparative maturity of that age had filled her with a moving disdain for certain fanciful thoughts which had given her extreme youth a decidedly novel if not an actually adventurous setting. Until yesterday, almost, she had regarded the various chairs of the house as beings endowed with life and character; ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer

... to change the needle for the more congenial pen and ink, and Mr. Sherwood insisted that Gussie should put her needle to more practical use. Now, while Gussie liked well enough to handle a needle and thread when something showy and fanciful was to be evolved thereby, she almost rebelled against the plain sewing, it was such dull, uninteresting work; it made so much difference if the sharp little instrument held Berlin wool, floss, etc., or the common cotton thread, which, though ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth

... estate of the dead man to the survivor; but no one fights a duel without first asking leave of the minister, who forthwith grants it. These are the common kinds of punishments, but they have others more fanciful; for when the King so desires, he commands a man to be thrown to the elephants, and they tear him in pieces. The people are so subject to him that if you told a man on the part of the King that he must stand still in a street holding a stone on his back all day ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell

... Scattergood. "What's a name? Prob'bly some man named Poke settled there fust. Or pokeberries grew mighty common there. People weren't so fanciful about names in them days. Why! my son-in-law lives right now in a place in York State called 'Skunk's Hollow' and the city folks that's movin' in there is tryin' to git the post office to change the name to 'Posy Bloom.' No 'countin' for tastes in names. My poor mother called me Mahala Ann—an' ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long

... in the language of the country a large ant; but in fact there is not any spot so named; and although there is some resemblance between semut, the word for an ant, and the name in question, the etymology is quite fanciful. Others have imagined that they find an easy derivation in the word samatra, to be met with in some Spanish or Portuguese dictionaries, as signifying a sudden storm of wind and rain, and from whence our seamen may have borrowed the expression; but it is evident that ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... repeat it," she urged, adhering with ludicrous tenacity to the wise notion of an incognito she had got hold of; and she squeezed the arm of which she had now obtained full possession, and coaxed and conjured till I was obliged to pause in the park to laugh. Throughout our walk she rang the most fanciful changes on this theme; proving, by her obstinate credulity, or incredulity, her incapacity to conceive how any person not bolstered up by birth or wealth, not supported by some consciousness of name or connection, could maintain ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... [FN447] It may serve the home-artist and the home-reader to point out a few of the most erroneous The harp (i. 143) is the Irish and not the Eastern, yet the latter has been shown In i. 228; and the "Kanun " (ii. 77) is a reproduction from Lane's Modern Egyptians. The various Jinnis are fanciful, not traditional, as they should be (see inter alia Doughty's Arabia Deserta, ii. 3, etc.). In i. 81 and ii. 622 appears a specimen bogie with shaven chin and "droopers" by way of beard and mustachios: ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... genii had not been employed in raising them. The rains of centuries, a falling upon the extended prairie, had here found a reservoir and vent, and their sapping and undermining of the different veins of earth and stone had formed these strange and fanciful shapes. ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat

... of laughter from the spectators as Alzura, appeared, and we went into the hall amidst a round of cheering. Most of the guests wore some fanciful costume, but several officers, Miller and O'Brien ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens

... stronger than he in body. All that we read of Adam and Eve in the Bible is, as we should expect, the history of CHILDREN—children in mind, even when they were full- grown in stature. Innocent as children, but, like children, greedy, fanciful, ready to disobey at the first temptation, for the very silliest of reasons; and disobeying accordingly. Such creatures— with such wonderful powers lying hid in them, such a glorious future before them; and yet so weak, so wilful, so ignorant, ...
— The Gospel of the Pentateuch • Charles Kingsley

... on an equal footing with their guests; the princess had declined any conspicuous role, and was to appear in the simple but charming costume of a wood-nymph, while the prince had selected an ideal and fanciful hunter's costume. Even in the selection of huts the Princess Wilhelmina had refused to make any choice, and had drawn her number as the others did, even refusing a glimpse of it to ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach

... "Co." reports that he has been reading a work on Decorative Electricity, by Mrs. J.S.H. GORDON, and a very pretty and original little book he found it, full of suggestions, ingenious, fanciful, and practical, all at once—a rare combination. "Those about to" instal—and most of us will find ourselves in that position, sooner or later—will gain some invaluable hints and ideas from this volume, which, in addition to its other merits, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 2, 1891 • Various

... suspender and sometimes two—yarn ones knitted at home,—some wore vests, but few wore coats. Such coats and vests as did appear, however, were rather picturesque than otherwise, for they were made of tolerably fanciful patterns of calico—a fashion which prevails thereto this day among those of the community who have tastes above the common level and are able to afford style. Every individual arrived with his hands in his pockets; a hand came out occasionally ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... penned behind the bars of his own mad music. He has no melody. He loves ugly noises. He writes to distracting lengths; and, worst of all, his harmonies are hideous. But he doesn't forget to call his monstrosities fanciful names. If it isn't Don Juan, it is Don Quixote—have you heard the latter? [O shades of Mozart!] This giving his so-called compositions literary titles is the plaster for our broken heads—and ear-drums. So much for your three favorite ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker

... perspective of a novel is natural and legitimate, yet these are only metaphors, after all, that cannot be closely pressed. A book starts a train of ideas in the head of the reader, ideas which are massed and arranged on some kind of system; but it is only by the help of fanciful analogies that we can treat the mass as a definite object. Such phrases may give hints and suggestions concerning the method of the novelist; the whole affair is too nebulous for more. Even if a critic's memory ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock

... old lady snapped; though evidently more or less affected by the staunch way Fred stood up for his chum; "does he have any idea who could have done it? Perhaps he thinks my old black Mammy did; or poor, but honest, Jake Stall. He was always a fanciful boy, and it might be he suspects I walk in my sleep, and go around secreting my ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman

... wanting in dramatic power,—in this respect resembling the Philebus and the Laws,—is very clear and accurate, and has several touches of humour and satire. The language is less fanciful and imaginative than that of the earlier dialogues; and there is more of bitterness, as in the Laws, though traces of a similar temper may also be observed in the description of the 'great brute' in the Republic, and in the contrast of the lawyer and philosopher in the Theaetetus. The following are ...
— Sophist • Plato

... any thing but favorable. After recognizing that the author of "Manfred" is gifted with wonderful genius, Goethe pretends that it is an imitation of his "Faust," and thereupon writes a tissue of fanciful notions which he ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... themselves confess that the names they often assume are not those of real beings, but typical and fanciful. Nothing more, it would seem, is necessary to complete the condemnation of Spiritualism, so far as its own nature is concerned. When in addition to all else, it appears that the spirits cannot be identified; that the whole ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith

... 275 B.C.; appointed by Ptolemy III. Euergetes as the successor of Kallimachus in the post of librarian in the great library of Alexandria. He was the teacher of Aristophanes of Byzantium, and his fame as a man of learning is testified by the various fanciful titles which were conferred on him, such as "The Pentathlete," "The second Plato," etc. His great work was a treatise on ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus

... directions in the preface to the painfull schoolmaster, and more fully in the book called, 'Ludus Literarius, or the Grammar school, chap. 8.'" Notwithstanding a title so pretentious, it contains a translation of no more than the first 567 lines of the first Book, executed in a fanciful and pedantic manner; and its rarity is now the only merit of the volume. A literal interlinear translation of the first Book "on the plan recommended by Mr. Locke," was published in 1839, which had been already preceded ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso

... writer of literature, these books show Mr. Garland to be a realist, that is, a writer who deals with the facts of real life, but as you read Boy Life on the Prairie, you will see that he is fond of the ideal, of the fanciful, and of descriptions of simple rural scenes. The latter quality is very plain, when he writes of the birds and of the thrill of the open country that comes to the ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various

... remove all traces of that elegant and fanciful disposition of my effects, from which I had hoped for so much credit; for I was now ashamed and angry at having thought an instant upon the mode of receiving a visit which had commenced so agreeably, but terminated ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... with glittering eyes and long black hair, who seemed to imitate the motion of a snake; for, instead of walking straight forward with open front, he undulated along the pavement in a curved line. It may be too fanciful to say that something, either in his moral or material aspect, suggested the idea that a miracle had been wrought by transforming a serpent into a man, but so imperfectly that the snaky nature was yet hidden, and scarcely hidden, under the mere outward guise ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... scarcely any trace. As you wander round the city tracing the line of the old walls, you are struck by the general air of splendor. Most of the houses are large and of a massive style of architecture, adorned with fanciful gables and bearing the impress of the period when every inhabitant was a merchant, and every merchant was lodged like a king. The houses of the merchant princes, richly carved both inside and out, tell of the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various

... the slumberer, that shone like a faultless picture from its frame of golden curls, Theresa adjourned with Gerald to the porch. It was a perfect evening, and the rays of the full moon illumined the little portico, throwing on its floor, in fanciful mosaic, the fantastic shadows of the vines which draperied the pillars, and lighting up with its spiritual radiance, the earnest countenances of the youthful friends. Gerald looked more than usually pale in the blanching beams, and Theresa's gaze was ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various

... between London and Westminster. It formed part of the great demesne belonging to the Abbey of Westminster, and was inhabited chiefly by Thames fishermen, who had a settlement on the bank, and by the farmers of the Westminster estates. The derivation of the name from La Chere Reine is purely fanciful. ...
— The Strand District - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant

... shone with a myriad diamond tints; everything seemed to assume an extraordinary form and life. The fantastically carved walls of rock sparkled with capricious gleams. From the sides of black granite hung pendent icicles, sometimes slender and isolated, sometimes grouped in fanciful clusters. In the hollows, where damp and darkness for ever reign, climbed a bluish-grey moss, a melancholy and incomplete manifestation of life in the bosom of this death-like solitude. Within, the whole scene impressed the imagination strongly, while without, but close ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams

... you feel for him still, in spite of all his faults, how do you know that God may not feel for him still, in spite of all his faults? For my part," quoth Frank, in his fanciful way, "without believing in that Popish Purgatory, I cannot help holding with Plato, that such heroical souls, who have wanted but little of true greatness, are hereafter by some strait discipline brought to a better mind; perhaps, as many ancients have held with the Indian Gymnosophists, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... make much bombastic use of that term, while other Gringos scoff at the word 'honor,'" replied the mine owner, thoughtfully. "But even suppose that these Gringos have absurdly fanciful ideas of honor? They will never guess for what I really want them. Their work will be done, to my liking, and they will go away from here with never a suspicion of the kind of service ...
— The Young Engineers in Mexico • H. Irving Hancock

... that Charles Frohman made with Maude Adams was "The Legend of Leonora," in which she returned once more to Barrie's exquisite and fanciful satire, devoted this time to the woman question. In England it had been produced under the title ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman

... can only be answered with another question: 'Is Pierrot like a man, and has it been put beyond question that Pontius Pilate was hanged for beating his wife?' The Rowley writings are—properly considered—entirely fanciful and unreal. They have many faults, but are seen at their worst when Chatterton is trying to exhibit some eternal truth. There is a horrible (but perfectly natural) didacticism—the inevitable priggishness of a clever boy—which occasionally ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton

... conversation led to the subject of jewels. "These are my jewels," said the hostess, and turned to show the stranger her beautiful children. The story comes readily to mind as one looks at this portrait of Lady Cockburn and her Children. Indeed, the picture was once engraved[7] under the fanciful title of "Cornelia and her Children." Like the Roman matron of old, the English mother gathers her children about her as the choicest jewels of her possession. Her stately beauty is of the classic sort, and the children are as ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll

... marks! the marks! cling to the marks? or—' So I fixed my eyes again upon the marks, inspecting them more attentively, if possible, than I had done before, and, at last, I came to the conclusion that they were not capricious or fanciful marks, but were arranged systematically; when I had gazed at them for a considerable time, I turned the teapot round, and on the other side I observed marks of a similar kind, which I soon discovered were identical with the ones I had been observing. All the marks were something alike, ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... through the rue du Val-Noble, where Mademoiselle Cormon lived,—a little pleasure which he gave himself every morning, thinking, as usual, a variety of fanciful things:— ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac

... Paganel, beginning to enter into this perfectly taught but Anglo-colored fanciful geography. "As to Algeria, Morocco, Egypt—they are all struck out ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne

... too often be repeated that these discoveries represent no fanciful deductions, but are the outcome of rigidly careful observations which any one who will sufficiently prepare himself can verify. Critics fret over the amount of "sexuality" that Freud finds evidence of in the histories of his patients, and assume that he ...
— Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex • Sigmund Freud

... the requisites of a good peace, i. 295. the famous Triple Alliance negotiated by Temple and De Witt, v. 438. alliance between Church and State in a Christian commonwealth, a fanciful speculation, vii. 43. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke

... about the bonne speculation, and his constant straitenings for money, will account for his sometimes looking after the main chance rather too narrowly; and as for the Eugenie Grandet story (even if the supposition referred to in a note above be fanciful) it requires no great stretch of charity or comprehension to see in it nothing more awkward, very easily misconstrued, but not necessarily in the least heartless or brutal attempt of a rather absent and very much self-centered recluse absorbed ...
— The Human Comedy - Introductions and Appendix • Honore de Balzac

... of Hara is thus explained by the commentator; Hanti iti ha sulah; tam rati or adatte. This is very fanciful. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... porridge which had been left over from the night before, for I was disinclined to make a fire; and, feeling strengthened and reassured, dismissed all these fanciful terrors from my mind, and lay ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson

... "Hotel Bourgtheroulde," dating from the time of Francis the First, and bearing on its sculptured walls the story of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, in company with the strangely-contrasting "Allegories", from Petrarch's "Triumphs", is enough in itself to keep the mind engrossed with fanciful musings for an hour. How did Petrarch and the Field of the Cloth of Gold come together in the brain of the sculptor who long ago worked at these ancient bas- reliefs? One wonders, but the wonder is in vain,—there is no explanation;—and the "Bourgtheroulde" remains a pleasing and fantastic ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... Lady Ralegh's wish that there were 'love and concord amongst all' was not hypocritical. In all sincerity he had written twice in that spirit in the spring of 1600 to Lady Essex. He had found it of no use; and a period came when he rejoiced in an inveterate enemy's discomfiture. It is fanciful to affirm that he would have been pleased to assist in turning aside the final shock of ruin. His sentiments towards Essex at the end, unhappily, are too certain for the precise meaning of his enigmatical undated letter to Cecil, discovered ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing

... for the poor boy even here, although deprived of home comforts. How kindly has God appointed that the elastic spirit of childhood cannot be crushed! and to one of the fanciful and enthusiastic temperament of our hero it was indeed a great blessing. The objects met with in a great and populous city are always striking; and our little shoemaker, as he walked through the streets, felt himself elevated, not lowered, by the grandeur around him. ...
— Watch—Work—Wait - Or, The Orphan's Victory • Sarah A. Myers

... occupation of the adobe ranch house Mrs. Corblay had inaugurated the hat industry, with fresh vegetables as a side line. The garden was presided over by a dolorous squaw who responded to the rather fanciful appellation of Soft Wind. Sam Singer, her buck, was a stolid, stodgy savage, with eyes like the slits in a blackberry pie. Originally the San Pasqualians had christened him "Psalm Singer," because of the fact that once, during a revival ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne

... doubling the southern point of Saghalien called Cape Crillon, which led to a strait between Oku-Jesso and Jesso; this they named after La Perouse. Hitherto the geography of this part of the world had been most fanciful and imaginary. Sansen was of opinion that Corea was an island, and that Jesso, Oku-Jesso, and Kamtchatka existed only in imagination; whilst Delisle insisted that Jesso and Oku-Jesso were merely an island, ending at Sangaar Strait; and lastly, Buache, in his "Considerations Geographiques," ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne

... present in the mind of the artist. Realism is never the aim of religious art. The zigzag line, the coil, the spiral, the circle and the straight line, are all geometrical radicals of various serpentine forms. Any one of these may be displayed with fanciful embellishments and artistic aids. Or the artist, proceeding by synecdoche, takes a part for the whole, and instead of portraying the entire animal, contents himself with one prominent feature or one aspect of it. A striking instance of this has been developed by Dr. Harrison Allen, ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton

... king awoke, "and, behold it was a dream." But it was not one of those fanciful dreams, that come and go, and mean nothing. It was a dream from God, a great reality, as he was ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... romantic, something strangely fanciful in the old game of chess. Its origin is forgotten in a dim past—a past around which is woven historical tales of kings and queens, interesting anecdotes of ancient sports and pleasures. There is perhaps no indoor game as old and as beloved. [To inspire interest in certain games, and ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler

... at first, I cannot tell you; I do not think she knows herself. But you remember how weak and fanciful she is, and since that dreadful night she is always having what she calls 'dreams'—meaning that she dreams of the murder. In all these dreams Bethel is prominent; and she says she feels an absolute certainty that he was, in some way or other, ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood

... accident with two of the boats, which necessitated staying at Msala. While we were waiting there, one night after ten o'clock the poor devil came, alone, in a canoe. They had simply cut him in slices—a most beastly sight. I wake up sometimes even now dreaming of it, and I am not a fanciful sort of fellow. Joseph went into his room and was simply sick; I didn't know that you could be made sick by anything you saw. The sleeping sickness was on Durnovo then; he had brought it with him from the ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman

... "That's a little fanciful," he said grudgingly; and then recognised frankly the justness of its application. "Yet it's true—a European changing into an Oriental! Yes, it just ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason

... cause, by so much it is ignoble when there is not cause enough for it; and beyond all other ignobleness is the mere affectation of it, in hardness of heart. Simply bad writing may almost always, as above noticed, be known by its adoption of these fanciful metaphorical expressions as a sort of current coin; yet there is even a worse, at least a more harmful condition of writing than this, in which such expressions are not ignorantly and feelinglessly ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin

... evening dance. Our carriage was overtaken by them more than once; they presented flowers and fruits to our ladies, and refused any return. Some of the younger women, though sun-burnt, were handsome; and many of them, from their fanciful dresses, resembled the cottagers as exhibited on the stage. The men, on the other hand, were a most ugly race of beings, diminutive in size, and with the features of an old baboon. Mr. Younge, indeed, in some degree accounted for this, by the information ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney

... constitute a strikingly characteristic difference in favour of the "feudal" poets.) As to information, I could give you a critical sketch of poems, written by contemporaries of Chaucer, in Germany; an epic to compare with his "Palamon", and tales with his Tales, descriptive and fanciful poems with those of the same kind in our own poet. In short, a Life of Chaucer ought, in the work itself, and in the appendices of the work, to make the poet explain his age, and to make the age both explain the poet, and evince the superiority ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull

... simple and pious children would be provoked to cast their horn-books at your head." After this decent salutation, the pope attempts the usual distinction between the idols of antiquity and the Christian images. The former were the fanciful representations of phantoms or daemons, at a time when the true God had not manifested his person in any visible likeness. The latter are the genuine forms of Christ, his mother, and his saints, who had approved, by a crowd of miracles, the innocence and merit of this relative ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... Homer compared the Telamonian Ajax, in a moment of heroic endurance, to an ass. This, however, was only under a momentary glance from a peculiar angle of the case. But the Mahometan, too solemn, and also perhaps too stupid to catch the fanciful colors of things, absolutely by choice, under the Bagdad Caliphate, decorated a most favorite hero with the title of the Ass—which title is repeated with veneration to this day. The wild ass is one of the ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... other years—the maturing, ripening years—when, from the simple, primitive and enduring elements of life, she had gone to live amid complex, cultivated and largely fanciful standards and values. In that land of Kitty's birth a man is measured by the measure of his manhood; a woman is ranked by the quality of her womanhood. Strength and courage, sincerity, honesty, usefulness—these were the prime essentials of the man life ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright

... more to Marcia than to her, and when he paused she said with a contemptuous sneer in her voice, "I never could understand, David, how you who seem to have so much sense in other things will take up with such fanciful, impractical dreams as this railroad. Lemuel ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... constellation might become known as the Great Bear's constellation. Certainly, there is nothing in its shape to justify the name. Very few of the constellations indeed are like the thing they are called after. Their names were usually given for some fanciful association with the namesake, rather ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts

... more of the same sort of high-toned epistolary rhetoric, written and sent by a dear hand, whose fanciful pen seemed touched by the ambrosial tints of Autumn. So the year was going out in a gorgeous carnival, before the Lent-like solemnity of ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard

... of him, by Heath, for this work, in quarto.—17. One octavo, by Baker, for the octavo edition.—18. And one for Lavater's Essay on Physiognomy, in which Johnson's countenance is analysed upon the principles of that fanciful writer.—There are also several seals with his head cut on them, particularly a very fine one by that eminent artist, Edward Burch, Esq. R.A. in the possession of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell

... even years after, with a lowering of her voice: he was said to be an "atheist," and a reader of strange books. Yet he seemed a quiet, manageable man, and likely—again in Mrs. Tipping's phrase—to prove a "good provider;" so she had risked his heterodoxy, which indeed was a somewhat fanciful objection on her part, and made him, as he declared with his dying breath, ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne

... a fool," the plans of God came to being defeated by human enterprise is illustrated by unquestioned facts. The fact of medieval exploration, colonization, and even evangelization in North America seems now to have emerged from the region of fanciful conjecture into that of history. That for four centuries, ending with the fifteenth, the church of Iceland maintained its bishops and other missionaries and built its churches and monasteries on the frozen coast of Greenland ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... abdication of which is death. This innate heat is greatest in youth when most fuel is therefore required, but gradually declines with age. Another necessity for the support of life is the pneuma which circulates in the vessels. All this may seem fanciful enough, but we may remember that the first half of the nineteenth century had waned before the doctrine of the humours which had then lasted for at least twenty-two centuries became obsolete, and perhaps it still survives in certain modern scientific developments. Moreover, the finest and most ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various

... bright sun and the blue skies of tropical countries; and travellers have dilated largely upon the magnificent fruits, flowers, and foliage of tropical forests. One who has never visited these southern climes is disposed to indulge in very fanciful dreams of enjoyment there. Life would seem to be luxurious; every scene appears to be ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid



Words linked to "Fanciful" :   imaginary, originative, fancy, creative, notional, unreal



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