Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English homepage

phantom

2 adjective
     
phantom2 [only before noun]
1 literary seeming to appear to someone:
a phantom ship
2 not real, but seeming real to the person affected:
a phantom pregnancy
3 made to seem real in order to deceive people:
Phantom contracts were used to make the company seem more successful than it was.
4 used humorously to describe an unknown person that you blame for something annoying:
The phantom pen stealer strikes again!
Definition from the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Advanced Learner's Dictionary.

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