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I'm having trouble understanding this passage, mostly the part in bold. Is it regular grammar?

The citation is from Moby Dick:

If I had been downright honest with myself, I would have seen very plainly in my heart that I did but half fancy being committed this way to so long a voyage, without once laying my eyes on the man who was to be the absolute dictator of it, so soon as the ship sailed out upon the open sea."

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"Fancy" means to like it - "but half fancy" means to not like it much at all. So he is saying that he did not admit to himself that he did not want to commit to the voyage before seeing the Captain.

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    Is it correct that the "I did but" construct = "I only, merely"?
    – ftkg
    Commented Feb 11, 2014 at 0:57
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    close, but I think "I did not" is closer. I think the closer to 'not fancy at all' you get, the better for this sentence. He clearly seems to be making a point of his bad decision!
    – Oldcat
    Commented Feb 11, 2014 at 1:01
  • I think "I only, merely" is much closer to the meaning of "I did but" in general (see e.g. uses in the King James Bible). In this case, however, it is perhaps being used as an understatement: by saying that he only half-fancied it, he is saying that he didn't actually fancy it.
    – Niel de Beaudrap
    Commented Feb 11, 2014 at 2:53
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It means he wasn't very keen on doing it. He wasn't too enthusiastic about committing himself to such a long journey.

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As was mentioned by Oldcat, "half fancy" means to not be excited about traveling. Replace half with hardly and it makes a little more (modern) sense.

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Fancy can mean

to form a conception of : IMAGINE

He imagined that he was committed, but not really strongly imagining that.

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  • But isn't the [be] 'not keen' [on] sense usually given first in dictionaries (and according the Etymon predating the 'imagine' sense) more likely here? As given by Oldcat, say. Yes, they should have included a linked, attributed reference ... but OP should have done this research themself.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Aug 10, 2020 at 16:05

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