WordWeight : Weighing the Words

Pronunciation : Fan"ci*ful
Part of Speech : a.
Definition : 1. Full of fancy; guided by fancy, rather than by reason and experience; whimsical; as, a fanciful man forms visionary projects.

2. Conceived in the fancy; not consistent with facts or reason; abounding in ideal qualities or figures; as, a fanciful scheme; a fanciful theory.

3. Curiously shaped or constructed; as, she wore a fanciful headdress. Gather up all fancifullest shells. Keats.

Syn. -- Imaginative; ideal; visionary; capricious; chimerical; whimsical; fantastical; wild. -- Fanciful, Fantastical, Visionary. We speak of that as fanciful which is irregular in taste and judgment; we speak of it as fantastical when it becomes grotesque and extravagant as well as irregular; we speak of it as visionary when it is wholly unfounded in the nature of things. Fanciful notions are the product of a heated fancy, without any tems are made up of oddly assorted fancies, aften of the most whimsical kind; visionary expectations are those which can never be realized in fact. -- Fan"ci*ful*ly, adv. -Fan"ci*ful*ness, n.
Source : Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913