Meanings
- uncountablebroadcastingA genre of literature and film that is characterized by the intrusion of the supernatural into the realistic framework of a story.
And certainly the film's free-floating fantasy and the blatant transparency of its narrative--its capacity to be seen for the artifice that it is--are a lot closer to fantastique than they are to the more logically circumscribed forms of fancy celebrated in this country.
1988 January 29, Jonathan Rosenbaum, “Invitation to the Trance”, in Chicago Reader
comparative more fantastique · superlative most fantastique
- Belonging or relating to this genre.
Origin
- Frenchfantastique
- Englishfantastique
Unadapted borrowing from French fantastique. Doublet of fantastic.
More words from French
Full word history & related roots →Translations
French fantastique
- fantastiqueFrench term for a literary and cinematic genre and mode that is characterized by the intrusion of supernatural elements into the realistic framework of a story, accompanied by uncertainty about their existence
Polish fantastique
- fantastiqueFrench term for a literary and cinematic genre and mode that is characterized by the intrusion of supernatural elements into the realistic framework of a story, accompanied by uncertainty about their existence
Cite this entry
fantastique. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/fantastique
“fantastique.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/fantastique. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “fantastique,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/fantastique.
Source: fantastique on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.