1. a figment of the imagination; an illusion or apparition: "the cart seemed to glide like a terrible phantasm"
▪ an illusory likeness of something:"every phantasm of a hope was quickly nullified"
Word OriginMiddle English (in the sense ‘deceptive appearance’): from Old French fantasme, via Latin from Greek phantasma, from phantazein ‘make visible’, from phainein ‘to show’. The change from f- to ph- in the 16th century was influenced by the Latin spelling.
