fantastischen

Fantastischen is the attributive, declined form of the German adjective fantastisch used before plural nouns with a definite article or other determiner. In standard German, adjectives in the plural take the ending -en after a definite article, so phrases like die fantastischen Sterne or die fantastischen Geschichten illustrate the form fantastischen embedded in the longer word. The ending can vary with case and determiners, but in common usage with a definite article in the plural, fantastischen appears frequently.

The form is also notable because it appears in proper nouns. The name Die Fantastischen Vier, a prominent German hip hop group, uses the capitalized form Fantastischen as part of a fixed, branded title. In such contexts, capitalization signals that the phrase functions as a proper noun rather than a general descriptive phrase.

Etymology and meaning: fantastisch comes from the German, itself borrowed from the French fantastique, ultimately tracing to Latin and Greek roots related to imagination and phantasy. The compound in its declined form reflects standard German adjective inflection rather than a separate lexical item.

Usage notes: fantastischen generally conveys something extraordinary, imaginative, or marvelous. It appears in literary, journalistic, and everyday language to describe plural nouns in a definite context, and it can be encountered in cultural references, including music or media names that incorporate the word as part of a title.