In the soul
Are many lesser faculties, that serve
Reason as chief. Among these fancy next
Her office holds. Milton.

How now, my lord ! why do you keep alone,
Of sorriest fancies your companoins making ? Shak.

I have always had a fancy that learning might be made a play and recreation to children. Locke.

To fit your fancies to your father's will. Shak.

London pride is a pretty fancy for borders. Mortimer.

The fancy, all of a class who exhibit and cultivate any peculiar taste or fancy; hence, especially, sporting characters taken collectively, or any specific class of them, as jockeys, gamblers, prize fighters, etc.

At a great book sale in London, which had congregated all the fancy. De Quincey.

Syn. -- Imagination; conceit; taste; humor; inclination; whim; liking. See Imagination.

If our search has reached no farther than simile and metaphor, we rather fancy than know. Locke.

He whom I fancy, but can ne'er express. Dryden.

He fancied he was welcome, because those arounde him were his kinsmen. Thackeray.

This anxiety never degenerated into a monomania, like that which led his [Frederick the Great's] father to pay fancy prices for giants. Macaulay.

Fancy ball, a ball in which porsons appear in fanciful dresses in imitation of the costumes of different persons and nations. -- Fancy fair, a fair at which articles of fancy and ornament are sold, generally for some charitable purpose. -- Fancy goods, fabrics of various colors, patterns, etc., as ribbons, silks, laces, etc., in distinction from those of a simple or plain color or make. -- Fancy line (Naut.), a line rove through a block at the jaws of a gaff; -- used to haul it down. -- Fancy roller (Carding Machine), a clothed cylinder (usually having straight teeth) in front of the doffer. -- Fancy stocks, a species of stocks which afford great opportunity for stock gambling, since they have no intrinsic value, and the fluctuations in their prices are artificial. -- Fancy store, one where articles of fancy and ornament are sold. -- Fancy woods, the more rare and expensive furniture woods, as mahogany, satinwood, rosewood, etc.