In Language
In Elizabethan slang, a 'fantastic' was a fop; an "improvident young gallant" who was obsessed with showy dress. The character Lucio in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure is described in the Dramatis Personae as a 'Fantastic'.
In popular usage, the word "fantastic" has become a casual term of approval, a synonym for "great" or "brilliant", and this has to a great extent supplanted the original meaning of the word. However, the Concise Oxford English Dictionary still lists the original meaning first, with the popular meaning listed second and described as "informal".
In Russian language, "fantastic" (rus. фантастика) is used as an umbrella term that encompasses science fiction (called "science fantastic", rus. научная фантастика, there), fantasy and other non-realistic genres.
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“Man, even man debased by the neocapitalism and pseudosocialism of our time, is a marvelous being because he sometimes speaks. Language is the mark, the sign, not of his fall but of his original innocence. Through the Word we may regain the lost kingdom and recover powers we possessed in the far-distant past.”
—Octavio Paz (b. 1914)
“These are our grievances which we have thus laid before his majesty with that freedom of language and sentiment which becomes a free people, claiming their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)