List of 426 Sets of Synonyms - How they Differ - Total of 2307 Words - 192

SYNONYMS: imagination, fancy, fantasy.
These nouns refer to the power of the mind to form images, especially of what is not present to the senses.

Imagination is the most broadly applicable: The actor rehearsed the lines in his imagination. The glorious music haunts my imagination.
Fancy especially suggests mental invention that is whimsical, capricious, or playful and that is characteristically well removed from reality: It is founded not on fancy but on fact. Is world peace only the fancy of idealists?
Fantasy is applied principally to the product of imagination given free rein and especially to elaborate or extravagant fancy: The sitting room was a kind of Victorian fantasy, full of cabbage roses, fringe, and tassels.