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phantom

Look over there, across the room. Is that a phantom, some weary soul come back from the dead to haunt you? Maybe it’s a shadow, or maybe it’s a ghost. Either way, turn on a light and it’ll disappear. Hopefully.

Sleeping is difficult if there’s a phantom in your room, because who can rest with ghosts around? Some phantoms are real, but phantom can also be used to mean "a trick of the mind," like hearing a person outside your window, but then realizing it’s only the phantom rustling of leaves in a tree. Phantom limb is when someone loses an arm or leg, but their brain can still feel where their limb used to be.

DEFINITIONS OF: phantom

1

n something existing in perception only

Synonyms:
apparition, fantasm, phantasm, phantasma, shadow
Types:
UFO, flying saucer, unidentified flying object
an (apparently) flying object whose nature is unknown; especially those considered to have extraterrestrial origins
Flying Dutchman
a phantom ship that is said to appear in storms near the Cape of Good Hope
ghost, shade, specter, spectre, spook, wraith
a mental representation of some haunting experience
Type of:
illusion, semblance
an erroneous mental representation

n a ghostly appearing figure

Synonyms:
apparition, fantasm, phantasm, phantasma, specter, spectre
Types:
Flying Dutchman
the captain of a phantom ship (the Flying Dutchman) who was condemned to sail against the wind until Judgment Day
Type of:
disembodied spirit, spirit
any incorporeal supernatural being that can become visible (or audible) to human beings

adj something apparently sensed but having no physical reality

“seemed to hear faint phantom bells”
“the amputee's illusion of a phantom limb”
Synonyms
unreal
not actually such; being or seeming fanciful or imaginary
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