noun, adjective
noun
- an apparition or specter.
- an appearance or illusion without material substance, as a dream image, mirage, or optical illusion.
- a person or thing of merely illusory power, status, efficacy, etc.: the phantom of fear.
- an illustration, part of which is given a transparent effect so as to permit representation of details otherwise hidden from view, as the inner workings of a mechanical device.
adjective
- of, relating to, or of the nature of a phantom; illusory: a phantom sea serpent.
- Electricity. noting or pertaining to a phantom circuit.
- named, included, or recorded but nonexistent; fictitious: Payroll checks were made out and cashed for phantom employees.
noun
- an archaic spelling of phantom
noun
-
- an apparition or spectre
- (as modifier)a phantom army marching through the sky
- the visible representation of something abstract, esp as appearing in a dream or hallucinationphantoms of evil haunted his sleep
- something apparently unpleasant or horrific that has no material form
- med another name for manikin (def. 2b)
obsolete form of phantom.
c.1300, fantum “illusion, unreality,” from Old French fantosme (12c.), from Vulgar Latin *fantauma, from Latin phantasma “an apparition” (see phantasm). The ph- was restored in English late 16c. (see ph). Meaning “specter, spirit, ghost” is attested from late 14c.; that of “something having the form, but not the substance, of a real thing” is from 1707. As an adjective from early 15c.
n.
- Variant ofphantom
n.
- Something apparently seen, heard, or sensed, but having no physical reality.
- An image that appears only in the mind; an illusion.
- A model, especially a transparent one, of the human body or of any of its parts.
adj.
- Resembling, characteristic of, or being a phantom; illusive.
- Fictitious; nonexistent.