Search the Dictionary

A plant (Celosia cristata), of many varieties, cultivated for its broad, fantastic spikes of brilliant flowers; -- sometimes called garden cockscomb. Also the Pedicularis, or lousewort, the Rhinanthus Crista-galli, and the Onobrychis Crista-galli.

ing in one place. Amidst the concourse were to be seen the noble ladies of Milan, in gay, fantastic cars, shining in silk brocade. Prescott.

A kind of riddle based upon some fanciful or fantastic resemblance between things quite unlike; a puzzling question, of which the answer is or involves a pun. Or pun ambiguous, or conundrum quaint. J. Philips.

A kind of frenzy in which the patient is tormented by fantastic visions and want of sleep. Dunglison.

A person full of crotchets; one given to fantastic or impracticable projects; one whose judgment is perverted in respect to a particular matter. [Colloq.]

ature of a crime; -- said of an act or of conduct; as, criminal carelessness. Foppish and fantastic ornaments are only indications of vice, not criminal in themselves. Addison.

or transparent; pellucid; clear. Another cloud in the region of them, light enough to be fantastic and diaphanous. Landor.

The tincture sable or black when blazoned according to the fantastic system in which plants are substituted for the tinctures.

Fantastic designs. Embroidered with fantasies and flourishes of gold thread. Hawthorne.

g, fanciful, or wanton movements, by way of ornament, parade, bravado, etc.; to play with fantastic and irregular motion. Impetuous spread The stream, and smoking flourished o'er his head. Pope.

r sing with a clear, soft note, like that of a flute. Knaves are men, That lute and flute fantastic tenderness. Tennyson. The redwing flutes his o-ka-lee. Emerson.

folly; a professional jester or buffoon; a retainer formerly kept to make sport, dressed fantastically in motley, with ridiculous accouterments. Can they think me . . . their fool or jester Milton. April fool, Court fool, etc. See under April, Court, etc. -- Fool's cap, a cap or hood to which bells were usually attac…

The figurework, often fantastic and delicate, which moisture sometimes forms in freezing, as upon a window pane or a flagstone.

. See Doom Palm. -- Gingerbread work, ornamentation, in architecture or decoration, of a fantastic, trivial, or tawdry character.

In degree. [Obs.] Human reason doth not only gradually, but specifically, differ from the fantastic reason of brutes. Grew.

; wildly or strangely formed; whimsical; extravagant; of irregular forms and proportions; fantastic; ludicrous; antic. "Grotesque design." Dryden. "Grotesque incidents." Macaulay.

taining to, or suggestive of, a horse, or of horse racing; as, horsy manners; garments of fantastically horsy fashions. [Colloq.]

That quality of the imagination which gives to ideas an incongruous or fantastic turn, and tends to excite laughter or mirth by ludicrous images or representations; a playful fancy; facetiousness. For thy sake I admit That a Scot may have humor, I'd almost said wit. Goldsmith. A great deal of excellent humor was expend…

sposed to admit or accept that which is related as true, skeptical; unbelieving. Bacon. A fantastical incredulous fool. Bp. Wilkins.

A fantastic grimace or contortion of the body. [Obs.] Smirks and irps and all affected humors. B. Jonson .