What is "fantastic"

Fantastic \Fan*tas"tic\, a. [F. fantastique, fr. Gr. ??????????? able to represent, fr. ????????? to make visible. See Fancy.]

1. Existing only in imagination; fanciful; imaginary; not real; chimerical.

2. Having the nature of a phantom; unreal.
   --Shak.

3. Indulging the vagaries of imagination; whimsical; full of absurd fancies; capricious; as, fantastic minds; a fantastic mistress.

4. Resembling fantasies in irregularity, caprice, or eccentricity; irregular; oddly shaped; grotesque.

   There at the foot of yonder nodding beech, That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high.
   --T. Gray.

   Syn: Fanciful; imaginative; ideal; visionary; capricious; chimerical; whimsical; queer. See Fanciful.

Fantastic \Fan*tas"tic\, n. A person given to fantastic dress, manners, etc.; an eccentric person; a fop.
--Milton.

Our fantastics, who, having a fine watch, take all ocasions to draw it out to be seen.
--Fuller.

late 14c., "existing only in imagination," from Middle French fantastique (14c.), from Medieval Latin fantasticus, from Late Latin phantasticus "imaginary," from Greek phantastikos "able to imagine," from phantazein "make visible" (middle voice phantazesthai "picture to oneself"); see phantasm. Trivial sense of "wonderful, marvelous" recorded by 1938. Old French had a different adjective form, fantasieus "weird; insane; make-believe." Medieval Latin also used fantasticus as a noun, "a lunatic," and Shakespeare and his contemporaries had it in Italian form fantastico "one who acts ridiculously."

a. 1 Existing in or constructed from fantasy; of or relating to fantasy; fanciful. 2 Not believable; implausible; seemingly only possible in fantasy. 3 Resembling fantasies in irregularity, caprice, or eccentricity; irregular; grotesque. 4 wonderful; marvelous; excellent; extraordinarily good or great (''used especially as an intensifier'').

1. adj. ludicrously odd; "Hamlet's assumed antic disposition"; "fantastic Halloween costumes"; "a grotesque reflection in the mirror" [syn: antic, fantastical, grotesque]

2. extraordinarily good; used especially as intensifiers; "a fantastic trip to the Orient"; "the film was fantastic!"; "a howling success"; "a marvelous collection of rare books"; "had a rattling conversation about politics"; "a tremendous achievement" [syn: howling(a), marvelous, marvellous, rattling(a), terrific, tremendous, wonderful, wondrous]

3. extravagantly fanciful and unrealistic; foolish; "a fantastic idea of his own importance"

4. existing in fancy only; "fantastic figures with bulbous heads the circumference of a bushel"- Nathaniel Hawthorne [syn: fantastical]

5. exceedingly or unbelievably great; "the bomb did fantastic damage"; "Samson is supposed to have had fantastic strength"; "phenomenal feats of memory" [syn: phenomenal]

The fantastic is a subgenre of literary works characterized by the ambiguous presentation of seemingly supernatural forces.

Bulgarian-French structuralist literary critic Tzvetan Todorov originated the concept, characterizing the fantastic as the hesitation of characters and readers when presented with questions about reality.

Fantastic is the debut studio album by British pop duo Wham! Released on 9 July 1983, it reached No. 1 in the UK Albums Chart. It included the previously released singles " Young Guns", " Wham! Rap" and " Bad Boys". " Club Tropicana" was also released as a single, as was " Club Fantastic Megamix".

The album also features a hidden track (played on a honky tonk-style piano), which is included in the final 20 seconds of "Young Guns (Go for It!)".

"Fantastic" is the sixth single released by Japanese singer Ami Suzuki under Avex Trax released on 8 February 2006, in three formats, the two traditional CD and CD+DVD edition versions with the B-side track, and a Limited Edition version without the B-side track.

Fantastic or Fantastik can refer to:

Fantastic is the second EP of Canadian artist and Super Junior-M member Henry. It was released on July 14, 2014, by S.M. Entertainment in South Korea. The song, along with its music video was also released in Japan in Japanese under Avex Trax as his Japanese debut.

Fantastic was an American digest size fantasy and science fiction magazine, published from 1952 to 1980. It was founded by Ziff Davis as a fantasy companion to Amazing Stories. Early sales were good, and Ziff Davis quickly decided to switch Amazing from pulp format to digest, and to cease publication of their other science fiction pulp, Fantastic Adventures. Within a few years sales fell, and Howard Browne, the editor, was forced to switch the focus to science fiction rather than fantasy. Browne lost interest in the magazine as a result and the magazine generally ran poor quality fiction in the mid-1950s, under Browne and his successor, Paul W. Fairman.

At the end of the 1950s Cele Goldsmith took over as editor of both Fantastic and Amazing, and quickly invigorated the magazines, bringing in many new writers and making them, in the words of one science fiction historian, the "best-looking and brightest" magazines in the field. She helped to nurture the early careers of writers such as Roger Zelazny and Ursula K. Le Guin, but was unable to increase circulation, and in 1965 the magazines were sold to Sol Cohen, who hired Joseph Wrzos as editor and switched to a reprint-only policy. This was financially successful, but brought Cohen into conflict with the newly formed Science Fiction Writers of America. After a turbulent period at the end of the 1960s, Ted White became editor and the reprints were phased out.

White worked hard to make the magazine successful, introducing artwork from artists who had made their names in comics, and working with new authors such as Gordon Eklund. His budget for fiction was low, but he was occasionally able to find good stories from well-known writers which had been rejected by the other markets. Circulation continued to decline and in 1978 Cohen sold out his half of the business to his partner, Arthur Bernhard. White resigned shortly afterwards, and was replaced by Elinor Mavor, but within two years Bernhard decided to close down Fantastic, merging it with Amazing, which had always had slightly higher circulation.

Fantastic was a weekly British comic book magazine published by Odhams Press under the Power Comics imprint. It first appeared on 18 February 1967, and with its 52nd issue on 10 February 1968 it merged with its sister title Terrific. The 89th and final issue of Fantastic appeared on 7 September 1968, after which it was merged into Smash!.

Fantastic was different from the earlier Power Comics such as Smash! and Pow!, which were essentially traditional Beano-style British comic papers supplemented by a small amount of material reprinted from Marvel Comics. In contrast, Fantastic (and later Terrific as well) were more American in appearance, resembling the black-and-white comic anthologies of the time such as Creepy and Eerie. However, they were aimed at a younger audience than such magazines (although an older audience than the Beano-style British fare).

Fantastic was a Polish children's television channel owned by Zone Vision. It was launched on 1 November 1999. Daily programming consisted of a twelve-hour animation block from Nickelodeon and a two-hour additional block from Xilam.

Initially, the channel showed animated series and feature films with a voice over. By 2000, all series were dubbed. For a time the station was losing viewers. On 1 July 2001, Zone Vision closed Fantastic channel due to poor performance and low audience reach. Some Nickelodeon cartoons and movies moved into channels Canal+, MiniMax (now Teletoon+), TVP3 (now TVP Regionalna), Tele 5, RTL7 (later TVN7), TV4, TVP 1, Disney Channel and KidsCo until the Polish Nickelodeon was launched.