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elegance; -- used chiefly of style of discourse. [R.] An exact concinnity and eveness of fancy. Howell.

mprisonment; any restraint of liberty; seclusion. The mind hates restraint, and is apt to fancy itself under confinement when the sight is pent up. Addison.

A character dress, used at fancy balls or for dramatic purposes.

One who makes or deals in costumes, as for theaters, fancy balls, etc.

Infancy, or very early life. From their cradles bred together. Shak. A form of worship in which they had been educated from their cradles. Clarendon.

A strong habitual desire or fancy; a crotchet. It was quite a craze with him [Burns] to have his Jean dressed genteelly. Prof. Wilson.

ere is a crib. (See Crib, 11.) It is characterized by a great variety of chances. A man's fancy would be summed up in cribbage. John Hall. Cribbage board, a board with holes and pegs, used by cribbage players to score their game.

A perverse fancy; a whim which takes possession of the mind; a conceit. He ruined himself and all that trusted in him by crotchets that he could never explain to any rational man. De Quincey.

A kind of madness in which men fancy themselves changed into dogs, and imitate the voice and habits of that animal.

A vain fancy speculation; a reverie; a castle in the air; unfounded hope. Mrs. Lambert's little daydream was over. Thackeray.

deduct from the computation of our years that part of our time which is spent in . . . infancy. Norris.

A wandering of the mind; a crazy fancy. [Obs.] Heywood.

lification to do a thing; legal incapacity or incompetency. The disabilities of idiocy, infancy, and coverture. Abbott.

One who has an unusual fancy for, or interest in, dogs; also, one who deals in dogs.

senility; as, a venerable man, now in his dotage. Capable of distinguishing between the infancy and the dotage of Greek literature. Macaulay.

s, which occupy the mind during sleep; a sleeping vision. Dreams are but interludes which fancy makes. Dryden. I had a dream which was not all a dream. Byron.

y, or resembling ebony; black; as, an ebony countenance. This ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling. Poe.

n before another; prior in years; senior; earlier; older; as, his elder brother died in infancy; -- opposed to Ant: younger, and now commonly applied to a son, daughter, child, brother, etc. The elder shall serve the younger. Gen. xxv. 23. But ask of elder days, earth's vernal hour. Keble. Elder hand (Card Playing), th…

A state of impassioned emotion; transport; elevation of fancy; exaltation of soul; as, the poetry of enthusiasm. Resolutions adopted in enthusiasm are often repented of when excitement has been succeeded by the wearing duties of hard everyday routine. Froude. Exhibiting the seeming contradiction of susceptibility to en…

o epigrams; like an epigram; pointed; piquant; as, epigrammatic style, wit, or sallies of fancy.