Forms: α. 5–6 fansey, 6–8 fansie, -ye, 6–7 fancie, -ye, 6– fancy. β. 6–8 phansy(e, -cie, -cy, 6–9 phansie. [A contraction of FANTASY; cf. the forms fantsy, phant’sy under that word.] A. sb.
† 1. In scholastic psychology: = FANTASY sb. 1.
[c. 1400, 1509: see FANTASY sb. 1.]
1594. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., I. vi. (1632), 56. Beasts, though otherwise behinde Men, may notwithstanding in actions of sense and phancie go beyond them [men].
1722. Wollaston, Relig. Nat., v. 101. We know matters of fact by the help of our senses, the strength of memory, impressions made upon phansy, or the report of others.
† 2. A spectral apparition; an illusion of the senses. Cf. FANTASY sb. 2. Obs.
[c. 1360–1576: see FANTASY sb. 2.]
1609. Holland, Amm. Marcell., XIV. xi. 25. Dreadfull spectres and fansies skreaking hideously round about him.
1656. B. Harris, trans. Parival’s The History of This Iron Age, 10. Forrests, where are sometimes heard great illusions, and phancies.
3. Delusive imagination; hallucination; an instance of this; = FANTASY 3.
1597. Hooker, A Learned Sermon of the Nature of Pride. The righteous therefore may have their phancies; they may, being carried away with grief or distempered with passionate affections, conceive worse of their own estate than reason giveth.
1693. trans. Emilianne’s Hist. Monast. Ord., xv. 157. Phancies of a deluded mind.
1727. De Foe, A System of Magic, I. iv. (1840), 107. No sooner was he asleep, but the vision appeared to his fancy, and asked him what was the occasion of his coming.
1840. Dickens, Barn. Rudge, i. That may be my fancy.
1856. Stanley, Sinai & Pal., ii. (1858), 156. Which alone, of all relgions, claims to be founded not on fancy or feeling, but on Fact and Truth.
4. In early use synonymous with IMAGINATION (see FANTASY 4); the process, and the faculty, of forming mental representations of things not present to the senses; chiefly applied to the so-called creative or productive imagination, which frames images of objects, events, or conditions that have not occurred in actual experience. In later use the words fancy and imagination (esp. as denoting attributes manifested in poetical or literary composition) are commonly distinguished: fancy being used to express aptitude for the invention of illustrative or decorative imagery, while imagination is the power of giving to ideal creations the inner consistency of realities. Often personified.
1581. T. Howell, Deuises (1879), 229.
| Down from the Heauens he fhootes the flaming dartes, | |
| That Fancie quickly burnes with quenchleffe fyre: | |
| Bereauing Reason quite in all her partes, | |
| Preferring wyll with doting fond desyre. |
1632. Milton, L’Allegro, 133.
| Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy’s child, | |
| Warble his native wood-notes wild. |
1662. Glanvill, Lux Orientalis, Pref. 5. If men might therefore indulge themselves in what conceits and dangerous opinions soever their phancies might give birth to.
1676. Hobbes, Iliad, Preface (1686), 6–7. For in Fancie consisteth the Sublimity of a Poet, which is that Poetical Fury which the Readers for the most part call for.
1712. Addison, Spect., No. 411, 21 June, ¶ 2. ‘The pleasures of the imagination,’ or ‘fancy’ (which I shall use promiscuously), I here mean such as arise from visible objects, either when we have them actually in our view, or when we call up their ideas into our minds by painting, statues, descriptions, or any the like occasion.
1713. C’tess Winchelsea, Miscellany Poems, 217.
| Yet were it granted, such unbounded Things | |
| Are wand’ring Wishes, born on Phancy’s Wings. |
1785. Reid, Int. Powers, IV. i. 374. Fancy may combine things that never were combined in reality.
1811. Coleridge, Lect. (1856), 45. When the whole pleasure received is derived from an unexpected turn of expression, then I call it wit; but when the pleasure is produced not only by surprise, but also by an image which remains with us and gratifies for its own sake, then I call it fancy.
1822. Hazlitt, Table-t., II. x. 221. Fancy colours the prospect of the future as it thinks good, when it even effaces the forms of memory.
1845. L. Hunt, Imagination and Fancy, 2. It [poetry] embodies and illustrates its impressions by imagination, or images of the objects of which it treats…. It illustrates them by fancy, which is a lighter play of imagination, or the feeling of analogy coming short of seriousness.
1851. Ruskin, Mod. Paint., II. III. II. iii. § 7. The fancy sees the outside, and is able to give a portrait of the outside, clear, brilliant, and full of detail. The imagination sees the heart and inner nature, and makes them felt, but is often obscure, mysterious, and interrupted, in its giving of outer detail.
1861. M. Pattison, Ess. (1889), I. 39. That ocean-horse in which the poetic fancy of the sea-roving Saxons saw an emblem of their high-prowed vessels.
b. A mental image.
1663. Bp. Patrick, Parab. Pilgr., 257. The very fancy of them [enjoyments] is delightful.
1798. Coleridge, Ode to France, i.
| How oft, pursuing fancies holy, | |
| My moonlight way o’er flowering weeds I wound, | |
| Inspired, beyong the guess of folly, | |
| By each rude shape and wild unconquerable sound! |
5. Inventive design; an invention, original device or contrivance. Cf. FANTASY 4 d.
1665. Sir T. Herbert, Trav. (1677), 223. The whole Building is grounded with Marble, rising from the ground six foot; the residue is brick arified in the Sun, pargetted and adorned with knots and fancies of Arabic Characters, in azure, red, and white colours laid in Oyl, after the mode of Persia.
1670. Narborough, Jrnl., in Acc. Sev. Late Voy., I. (1711), 57. The Model I imagine is to record our Ship, for they cannot have any Records but by imitation: This Fancy we let alone untouched.
1692. R. L’Estrange, Josephus’ Antiq., XII. ii. (1702), 322. The graving work … being the Phancy of a Foliage of the Vine.
c. 1710. C. Fiennes, Diary (1888), 168. Many good Pictures of ye family, and severall good fancy’s of human and animals.
1867. F. Francis, Angling, xii. (1880), 438. This fly [Salmon fly] is Mr. Blackwall’s own fancy.
† b. esp. in Music, a composition in an impromplu style. Obs. Cf. FANTASIA, FANTASY 4 e.
1577. T. Dawson (title), The Workes of a young Wyt, trust vp with a Fardell of Prettie Fancies.
1597. Shaks., 2 Hen. IV., III. ii. 342. He … sung those tunes to the overscutched huswives that he heard the carmen whistle, and sware—they were his fancies, or his good-nights.
1663. Pepys, Diary, 27 May. Mr. Gibbons being come in … to musique, they played a good Fancy.
1691. Wood, Ath. Oxon., I. 848. He [Thomas Campion] was … much admired for his composition of Fancies of various parts.
1789. Burney, Hist. Mus., III. vii. 408. John Jenkins a voluminous composer of Fancies for viols.
1823. Crabb, Technol. Dict., Fancies (Mus.) lively little airs.
† c. pl. ‘The ornamental tags, etc., appended to the ribbons by which the hose were secured to the doublet’ (Fairholt). Obs.
a. 1652. Brome, Mad Couple, Prologue.
| I’ve a new Suite, | |
| And Ribbons fashionable, yclipt Fancies. |
6. A supposition resting on no solid grounds; an arbitrary notion.
1471. Ripley, Comp. Alch., V. in Ashm. (1652), 149.
| To know the truth, and fansies to eschew | |
| Like vnto thee in riches shall be but few. |
1539. Taverner, Erasm. Prov. (1552), 18. Menne myght loke upon it, and talke theyr fansies of it.
1590. Sir J. Smythe, Disc. Weapons, 25. Rather upon fancie, than upon anie souldiourlyke reasons and experience.
1672. Marvell, Reh. Transp., Wks. II. 58. After this I had another phansie … not altogether unreasonable.
1783. Hailes, Antiq. Chr. Ch., ii. 33. This fancy is very ancient, for Orosius hints at it.
1809–10. Coleridge, The Friend (1865), 142. It would be as wild a fancy as any of which we have treated, to expect that the violence of party spirit is never more to return.
7. Caprice, changeful mood; an instance of this, a caprice, a whim. Also concr. a whimsical thing.
1579. G. Harvey, Letter-bk. (Camden), 86. A foolish madd worlde, wherein all thinges ar overrulid by fansye.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., II. iv. 82. Cardans Mausoleum for a flye, is a meere pliancy.
1676. Lister, in Ray’s Corr. (1848), 124. The addition of the French names would have been but a fancy.
1717. Lady M. W. Montagu, Lett., II. xlvii. 40. A husband would be thought mad that exacted any degree of economy from his wife, whose expences are no way limited but by her own fancy.
1787. Bentham, Def. Usury, i. 2. A fancy has taken me just now to trouble you with my reasons.
1848. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., II. 46. The antipathy of the nation to their religion was not a fancy which would yield to the mandate of a prince.
1860–1. Flo. Nightingale, Nursing, 43. Such cravings are usually called the ‘fancies’ of patients. And often, doubtless, patients have ‘fancies,’ as, e.g. when they desire two contradictions. But much more often, their (so-called) ‘fancies’ are moat valuable signs of what is necessary for their recovery. And it would be well if nurses would watch these (so-called) ‘fancies’ closely.
1878. A Masque of Poets, 80, Forgiven.
| I have a fancy we go out to-day, | |
| And tread the woods together, and again | |
| Go, both of us, the dear, familiar way. |
† b. Fantasticalness. Obs.
1588. Shaks., Loves Labour’s Lost, I. i. 171.
| This childe of fancie that Armado hight, | |
| For interim to our studies shall relate, | |
| In high-borne words the worth of many a Knight. | |
| Ibid. (1602), Ham., I. iii. 71. | |
| Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy; | |
| But not exprest in fancie; rich, not gawdie. |
1823. Byron, Juan, XI. xvii.
| A thorough varmint, and a real swell, | |
| Full flash, all fancy. |
8. Capricious or arbitrary preference; individual taste; an inclination, liking, esp. in phrases to have, take a fancy for, to; † to have no fancy with; to take, catch the fancy of.
1465. Paston Lett., No. 530, II. 243. I have non fansey with some of the felechipp.
1541. Act 33 Hen. VIII., c. 21. In case it fortune … the king … should take a fancie to anie woman.
1553. T. Wilson, Rhet. (1580), 200. Speake muche, according to the nature and phansie of the ignoraunt.
1577. B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb., III. (1586), 114 b. Hee that hath a fansie to breed Horse.
1600. J. Pory, trans. Leo’s Africa, II. 315. Each … would interpret the opinions of Mahomet according to their owne fancie.
1662. J. Davies, Voy. Ambass., 314. The Persians have a great fancy to Black hair, and they bear with the flaxen-hair’d, but not without some trouble; but for Red-hair’d people, they have a strong aversion.
1682. Wheler, Journ. Greece, I. 36. Phansie took us to go see the Fortress.
1700. S. L., trans. C. Fryke’s Voy. E. Ind., 82. The Admiral had a mighty fancy to go over, and so had some others of the chief Officers.
1848. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., II. 433. The verses and the tune caught the fancy of the nation.
1866. G. Macdonald, Ann. Q. Neighb., xxxi. (1878), 533. What could have made Miss Crowther take such a fancy to the boy?
1884. W. C. Smith, Kildrostan, 86.
| Have you no fancy | |
| To ride the white steeds in a merry gale? |
† b. spec. Amorous inclination, love. Obs.
1559. Mirr. Mag., Dk. of Clarence, xii.
| For knowing fansie was the forcing rother, | |
| Which stiereth youth to any kinde of strife, | |
| He offered me his daughter to my wife. |
1579. Lyly, Euphues (Arb.), 81. Philautus was … neuer loued for fancie sake.
1596. Shaks., Merch. V., III. ii. 63.
| Tell me where is fancie bred, | |
| Or in the heart, or in the head. |
1712. Arbuthnot, John Bull, III. iii. ‘Fancy is free,’ quoth Peg.
9. Taste, critical judgement in matters of art or elegance.
c. 1665. Mrs. Hutchinson, Mem. Col. Hutchinson, 23. He was … genteel in his habit, and had a very good fancy in it.
1705. Addison, Italy, 11. The New-Street is a double Range of Palaces from one end to the other, built with an excellent Fancy, and fit for the greatest Princes to inhabit.
1713. Swift, Cadenus & Vanessa.
| I’ll undertake my little Nancy, | |
| In Flounces has a better Fancy. |
1748. C’tess Shaftesbury, in Priv. Lett. Ld. Malmesbury, I. 72. Lady Lincoln, a buff-coloured damask, trimmed with a good deal of fancy.
1857. Ruskin, Pol. Econ. Art, 42. They possess … sense of colour, and fancy for form.
† 10. ‘Something that pleases or entertains’ (J.).
1590. Sir J. Smythe, Disc. Weapons, 39. All such as are … not carried with toyes, fancies, and new fashions.
1712. Mortimer, Husbandry, II. 204. London-Pride is a pretty Fancy for borders.
1721. Cibber, Love’s Last Shift, IV. A particular nice Fancy, that I intend to appear in.
† 11. An alleged name for the Pansy. Obs.
1712. trans. Pomet’s Hist. Drugs, I. 120. Fancy, in English, is a kind of Violet.
12. The fancy: collect. for those who ‘fancy’ a particular amusement or pursuit, a. gen., as applied to bird-, book -fanciers, etc.
1830. De Quincey, Bentley, Wks. 1863, VI. 57, note. A great book sale … had congregated all the Fancy.
1889. The Saturday Review, LXVII. 22 June, 772/1. Pigeon-fanciers are called the Fancy.
b. esp. The prize-ring or those who frequent it.
1811. Southey, Let., 11 Oct. (1856), II. 236. I have fibbed the ‘Edinburgh’ (as the ‘fancy’ say) most completely.
1848. Thackeray, Bk. Snobs, xiv. (1869), 64. Mr. William Ramm, known to the Fancy as the Tutbury Pet.
1873. H. Spencer, Stud. Sociol., viii. (ed. 6), 187. Among leaders of ‘the fancy,’ it is an unhesitating belief that pluck and endurance are the highest of attributes.
attrib. 1811. Southey, Lett., 6 March (1856), II. 215. I am in high condition, to use a fancy phrase.
c. The art of boxing; pugilism. Also, sporting in general.
1820. Byron, Lett. to Murray, 12 Nov. One of Matthew’s passions was ‘the Fancy.’
1841. De Quincey, Plato’s Rep., Wks IX. 236. When the ‘fancy’ was in favour.
1851. Mayhew, Lond. Labour (1861), III. 5. He … is always … at home … to discuss the Fancy generally.
1889. Standard, 28 Oct. Modern displays of ‘the Fancy.’
13. The art or practice of breeding animals so as to develop points of conventional beauty or excellence; also one of these points. Sometimes with qualifying word prefixed, as pigeon-fancy.
1889. The Saturday Review, LXVII. 22 June, 772/2. The peculiar fancy affecting him [the carrier] is to have wattles and excrescences round his eyes and beak.
1889. Standard, 23 Oct. The layman uninitiated in the mysteries of ‘fancy.’
attrib. 1862. Huxley, Lect. Wrkg. Men, 104, note. The birds which fly long distances, and come home,—‘homing’ birds,—and are consequently used as carriers, are not ‘carriers’ in the fancy sense.
1876. Encycl. Brit., IV. 249/2. The less important art of fancy breeding.
1889. The Saturday Review, LXVII. 22 June, 772/2. A pouter graces the frontispiece, using the word ‘grace’ in the Fancy sense.
14. = various combs. of the adj.
1841. F. Jackson, A Week in Wall Street, 82. A very large portion of the stocks termed ‘fancies,’ are entirely worthless in themselves.
1851. Beck’s Florist, 140. Pelargoniums, both ‘Fancies’ and common kinds, were produced … Mr. Ambrose’s Fancy … was … distinguished.
1862. Times, 17 Feb. Ordinary cloths and fancies moved off alike slowly.
b. = fancy-roller; see C 2 b.
1864. Specif. Barraclough’s Patent, No. 1581. 5. The rollers c are the ‘fancies’ before named.
1873. E. Leigh, Cotton Spinning, I. 144. The surface of the ‘fancy’ runs in the same direction as the cylinder only a little faster.
1876. W. C. Bramwell, Wool-Carder (ed. 2), viii.
B. attrib. and Comb.
1. General relations: a. Simple attrib. (sense 4) as fancy-fit, -freak, -woof; (sense 12 b, c) as fancy-lay [see LAY sb.].
1855. Browning, Men & Wom., In a Balcony, 101.
| This wild girl (whom I recognise | |
| Scarce more than you do, in her *fancy fit …). | |
| Ibid. (1884), Ferishtah’s Fancies (1885), 4. | |
| A *fancy-freak by contrast born of thee. |
1819. T. Moore, Tom Crib’s Mem., 36.
| Why We, who’re of the *Fancy lay, | |
| As dead hands at a mill as they. |
a. 1845. Hood, The Irish Schoolmaster, xvi.
| Or, whilst he labours, weaves a *fancy-woof, | |
| Dreaming he sees his home. |
b. objective, as fancy-feeding, -lighting, -stirring, -weaving ppl. adjs.; fancy-monger, -weaver.
1599. E. Sandys, Europæ Speculum (1632), 162. Theyr favorites and *fancy-feeding flatterers shall all shrinke from them, and nothing but their owne deeds and deserts accompanie them.
1857. Willmott, Pleas. Lit., xxi. 132. The *fancy-lighting damsons of Dryden.
1600. Shaks., As You Like It, III. ii. 381. If I could meet that *Fancie-monger, I would giue him some good counsel, for he seemes to haue the Quotidian of Loue vpon him.
1835. Willis, Pencillings (1836), II. xlv. 58. The Egyptian bazaar has been my frequent and most *fancy-stirring lounge.
a. 1845. Hood, Compass, xvii.
| To eye of *fancy-weaver, | |
| Neptune, the God, seem’d tossing in | |
| A raging scarlet fever! |
1884. The Athenæum, 6 Dec., 725/2. Mr. Browning, being … on terms of the closest intimacy with a certain *fancy-weaving dervish Ferishtah.
c. instrumental, originative and adverbial, as fancy-baffled, -blest, -born, -borne, -bred, -built, -caught, -driven, -fed, -formed, -framed, -grazing, -guided, -led, -raised, -struck, -stung, -woven, -wrought ppl. adjs.
1645. Quarles, Sol. Recant., iv. 21.
| Thy false affections may rise up, and shake | |
| Thy *fancy-baffled Judgment. |
1759. Goldsm., Polite Learning, vii. Wks. 1881, II. 44. The *fancy-built fabric is styled for a short time very ingenious.
1631. T. Powell, Tom of All Trades, 49. The young Factor being *fancy-caught in his dayes of Innocency, & before he travaile so farre into experience as into forreigne Countries, may lay such a foundation of first love in her bosome, as no alteration of Climate can alter.
1844. Ld. Houghton, Palm Leaves, 131.
| Diverging many separate roads, | |
| They wandered, *fancy-driven, | |
| Nor thought of other fixed abodes | |
| Than Paradise or Heaven. |
1850. Tennyson, In Mem., lxxxiv. 24.
| So hold I commerce with the dead; | |
| Or so methinks the dead would say; | |
| Or so shall grief with symbols play | |
| And pining life be *fancy-fed. |
1654. Gataker, A Discours Apologetical, 68. *Fancie-formed pictures, and antick shapes, falling foul with his cleer knowledge.
1647. Crashaw, Poems, 53.
| He his own *fancy-framed foe defies: | |
| In rage, ‘My arms, give me my arms.’ |
1852. Meanderings of Memory, I. 79. The *fancy-grazing herds of freedom’s pen.
1645. Quarles, Sol. Recant., vii. 36.
| The least contentment in thy various minde, | |
| Whose *fancy-guided motion cannot finde | |
| The point of Rest. |
1777. J. Mountain, Poetical Reveries (ed. 2), 20.
| Thus, *fancy-led, th’ ideas ran | |
| That aim’d thy excellence to scan. |
1873. Longf., Wayside Inn, Emma and Eginhard, 88.
| The leaves fell, russet-golden and blood-red, | |
| Love-letters thought the poet fancy-led. |
1798. Sotheby, trans. Wieland’s Oberon (1826), I. 80.
| Now, reader, *fancy-rais’d, as swells thy mind, | |
| Rous’d by the sound of Angulaffer’s name. |
1773. J. Home, Alonzo, IV. If we stay here we shall be *fancy-struck.
1822. Hazlitt, Table-t., Ser. II. vii. (1869), 149. Our ears are *fancy stung!
1785. Warton, Ode for the New-Year, 1786, i. 9. Veil’d in fable’s *fancy-woven vest.
1801. Lusignan, iv. 147. A *fancy-wrought spectre.
2. Special comb.: fancy-bloke, slang, = FANCY MAN; fancy-fit v. trans., to fit (with a garland) to one’s fancy; fancy-free a., free from the power of love; fancy-loose a., ready to roam at will; fancy-sick a., love-sick; fancy-woman, a kept mistress (cf. FANCY MAN).
1846. R. L. Snowden, Magistrate’s Assistant, 344. A *fancy bloak.
1820. Keats, Lamia, II. 219.
| Each, as he did please, | |
| Might *fancy-fit his brows, silk-pillow’d at his ease. |
1590. Shaks., Mids. N., II. i. 164.
| The imperiall Votresse passed on, | |
| In maiden meditation, *fancy free. |
1840. Thackeray, Paris Sk.-bk. (1869), 98. They walk, fancy-free, in all sorts of maiden meditations.
1850. Mrs. Browning, Poems, The House of Clouds, II. 320.
| I would build a cloudy House | |
| For my thoughts to live in, | |
| When for earth too *fancy-loose, | |
| And too low for heaven. |
1590. Shaks., Mids. N., III. ii. 96.
| All *fancy sicke she is, and pale of cheere, | |
| With sighes of loue, that costs the fresh bloud deare. |
1692. R. L’Estrange, Fables, ccxcv. 257. When we come once to be Fancy-sick, there’s No Cure for’t.
1823. Joanna Baillie, Poems, Evening, 219.
| Thou art the poet’s worship, and his eye | |
| More wildly flashes in thy hallow’d ray: | |
| To thee the lover, fancy-sick, will sigh. |
1892. Daily News, 1 March, 2/4. He brought home a female, whom he introduced as his ‘fancy woman.’
c. adj. [Developed from the attrib. use of the sb.; scarcely occurring in predicative use.]
1. Of a design varied according to the fancy; ‘fine, ornamental,’ in opposition to ‘plain’; as in fancy basket, bread, trimming, etc. Also FANCY DRESS, FANCY WORK.
a. 1761. Gray, Lett., Wks. 1884, III. 118. They [wall papers] are all what they [the shops] call fancy, and indeed resemble nothing that ever was in use in any age or country.
1788. W. Marshall, Yorksh. (1796), I. 116. The fancy farm-houses … I purposely pass over.
1834. Medwin, Angler in Wales, II. 211. He had for field duty two fancy uniforms.
1839. Longf., Hyperion, II. ix. And so likewise said to himself a very tall man, with fiery red hair, and fancy whiskers, who was waltzing round and round in one spot, and in a most extraordinary waistcoat; thus representing a fiery, floating light, to warn men of the hidden rocks, on which the breath of vanity drives them shipwreck.
1842. Tennyson, The Vision of Sin, 100.
| We are men of ruin’d blood; | |
| Therefore comes it we are wise. | |
| Fish are we that love the mud, | |
| Rising to no fancy-flies. |
1853. Fraser’s Mag., XLVII., June, 680/2. A large assortment of fancy breads to eat with the different relishes.
1866. Mrs. Whitney, L. Goldthwaite, ix. To grow intimate over tableau plans and fancy stitches.
1883. E. Ingersoll, The Home of Hiawatha, in Harper’s Mag., LXVII., June, 78/1. ‘Fancy’ flour differs from the ordinary superfine in that the middlings are ground through smooth rollers.
b. Printing. (see quots.)
1871. Amer. Encycl. Printing, 256/2. Job Letter.… Job Letter may be conveniently divided into Plain, Fancy, Text, and Script.
1888. C. T. Jacobi, Printers’ Voc., 42. Fancy rules, rules other than plain ones of various designs. Fancy types, founts of type of various kinds used for jobbing purposes.
c. Of flowers, grass, etc.: Particolored, striped.
1793. G. Washington, Letter to A. Whiting, Writings, 1891, XII. 378. From the fancy grass … I have been urging for years … the saving of seed.
1851. Beck’s Florist, 139. Mr. Ayres shewed his fancy Pelargonium.
1893. Webbs’ Spring Catal., 65. Webbs’ Fancy Pansy. Ibid., 80. Perpetual fancy Carnation.
d. ellipt. That deals in, or is concerned with the sale of, fancy goods. Fancy fair: see FAIR sb.1 1 c.
1821. Blackw. Mag., X., Aug., 4/1. Our young haberdashers and others in the fancy line, are in the practice of taking a trip up to the town of London, to see the fashions.
1848. Thackeray, Van. Fair, I. She buys a couple of begilt Bristol boards at the Fancy Stationer’s.
1863. J. C. Jeaffreson, Sir Everard’s Dau., 113. A chattel for which a fancy-upholsterer in London would ask a strangely large number of pounds.
1876. World, V. 17. A fancy-fair is one of the diversions of a London Season.
1885. Bookseller, 5 March, 317/2. A good Fancy Trade.
e. Fancy ball = Fancy dress ball (see FANCY DRESS sb.).
1825. C. M. Westmacott, Eng. Spy, II. 24. A grand fancy ball was to take place at the Argyle Rooms.
1836. Hawthorne, Amer. Note-bks. (1883), 34. A Fancy Ball, in which the prominent American writers should appear, dressed in character.
2. Added for ornament or extraordinary use.
1794. Rigging & Seamanship, I. 169. Fancy-line is a rope used to overhaul the brails of some fore and aft sails.
1841. R. H. Dana, Seaman’s Man., 104. Fancy-line. A line rove through a block at the jaws of a gaff, used as a downhaul.
1874. Micklethwaite, Modern Parish Churches, 77. The tendency at the present day is to increase the list of fancy and solo stops [in an organ] at the expense of those which are of sterling value.
b. Fancy roller (in a Carding-engine): see quots.
1850. Specif. E. Leigh’s Patent, No. 13027. 2. Thirdly in the employment of a ‘fancy roller’ for partially stripping the main cylinder, such roller being only partially clothed with card.
1873. E. Leigh, Cotton Spinning, I. 144. For heavy carding a fancy roller, which is a roller that overruns the periphery of the cylinder, is sometimes used with advantage … [It] lifts the cotton that would otherwise get wedged in the wire of the cylinder, and thereby admits heavy carding.
3. Calling forth or resulting from the exercise of fancy or caprice. a. Of an action: Capricious, whimsical.
1646. Pagitt, Heresiogr. (ed. 3), 118. Their own fancy presumption they call … justifying faith.
a. 1820. W. Irving, Sketch Bk., Stratford-on-Avon (1865), 330. The Avon … made a variety of the most fancy doublings.
1821. Blackw. Mag., X., Nov., 417. Amidst all their flummery, however, and many a fancy flam was proposed, they agreed that nothing would do half so well as a long-winded, well-told, regular built story.
1837. Dickens, Pickw., xix. As a display of fancy shooting, it was extremely varied and curious.
b. Of a price, rent, etc.: Estimated by caprice, rather than by actual value. So fancy stocks (cf. FANCY sb. 14).
a. 1838. Macaulay, Life & Lett. (1883), II. 28. The fancy price which a peculiar turn of mind led me to put on my liberty.
1848. J. R. Bartlett, Americanisms, 132. Fancy Stocks. A species of stocks which are bought and sold to a great extent in New York…. Nearly all the fluctuations in their prices are artificial.
1874. Micklethwaite, Modern Parish Churches, 312. They will give a fancy price for a work by a Leighton.
1874. R. Tyrwhitt, Sketch. Club, 197. To take a moor at a fancy rent.
1888. T. E. Holland, in Times, 18 Aug., 8/4. The bombardment of an unfortified town … for the purpose of enforcing a fancy contribution or ransom.
c. Of an animal or bird: Of a kind bred for the development of particular ‘points’ or qualities. Also in Fancy-farm: an experimental farm.
1810. Sporting Mag., XXXVI. April, 10/2. There are a great many sorts of fancy-pigeons; each variety has some particular property, which constitutes its supposed value.
1818. Scott, Hrt. Midl., xlii. To engage him … to superintend his fancy-farm in Dumbartonshire.
1851. Mayhew, Lond. Labour, II. 54/2. A dog recommended by its beauty, or any peculiarity, so that it be suitable for a pet-dog, is a ‘fancy’ animal.
1880. Gainsburgh Times, 20 Feb., in N. W. Linc. Gloss. ‘What sort of a dog was it?’ … ‘A fancy dog.’
1881. J. C. Lyell, Fancy Pigeons, Introd. Fancy pigeons from the lofts of well-known breeders.
d. Fancy franchise: one based on an arbitrarily determined qualification (see quot. 1868).
1868. Chambers’ Encycl., X. 695/2. The dual vote was early abandoned, and its abandonment involved that of the ‘fancy’ franchises … they proposed to give votes to all who paid £1 annually in direct taxes (not including licences), who belonged to certain of the better educated professions, or who had £50 in a savings-bank or in the funds.
1889. Tablet, 21 Dec., 983. Fancy franchises were also abandoned.
4. Based upon or drawn from conceptions of the fancy (sb. 3), as fancy picture, piece, portrait, sketch.
1800. Mar. Edgeworth, Belinda (1832), II. 2 This picture is not a fancy-piece.
c. 1811. Fuseli, Lect. Art, iv. (1848), 437. Such were the Phantasiæ of the ancients, which modern art, by indiscriminate laxity of application, in what is called Fancy-pictures, has more debased than imitated.
1844. Whittier, The Two Processions, Prose Wks. 1889, III. 116. The caricature of our ‘general sympathizers’ in Martin Chuzzelwit is by no means a fancy sketch.
1870. Emerson, Soc. & Solit., Art, Wks. (Bohn), III. 20. In sculpture, did ever anybody call the Apollo a fancy piece?
1873. H. Rogers, Orig. Bible, i. (1875), 36. The theory which attempts to account for their belief on mythical principles, will be briefly considered when we come to look at this wonderful character as a fancy portrait.
