imaginary

[ih-maj-uh-ner-ee]

adjective

1. existing only in the imagination or fancy; not real; fancied.

   an imaginary illness; the imaginary animals in the stories of Dr. Seuss.

   Synonyms: illusory, baseless, chimerical, shadowy, visionary, fanciful
   Antonyms: real

noun

plural

imaginaries 

1. Mathematics.,  imaginary number.

imaginary

/ -dʒɪnrɪ, ɪˈmædʒɪnərɪ /

adjective

1. existing in the imagination; unreal; illusory

2. maths involving or containing imaginary numbers. The imaginary part of a complex number, z, is usually written Im z

Other Word Forms

• imaginarily adverb
• imaginariness noun
• nonimaginarily adverb
• nonimaginarilyness noun
• nonimaginariness noun
• nonimaginary adjective
• preimaginary adjective
• unimaginary adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of imaginary¹

1350–1400; Middle English < Latin imāginārius, equivalent to imāgin-, (stem of imāgō ) image + -ārius -ary

Example Sentences

Their approaches, wrote the 19th-century historian Thomas Babington Macaulay, differ as “a portrait differs from the representation of an imaginary scene.”

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

With great theatricality, she dropped the imaginary correspondence on the ground.

Read more on Literature

A bemused Miss Mortimer opened her office door to find the Incorrigibles taking mock bows and curtsies before an imaginary audience, as if they had just concluded a successful opening night on the West End.

Read more on Literature

Penelope’s scalp was already sweaty beneath her pith helmet, and she found herself shooing away imaginary gnats.

Read more on Literature

His flights of fancy— malevolent music, undead scholars, imaginary brothers, a cult led by a guru with 93 Ferraris in an “experimental township” called the Moon — are more controlled and add subtle strokes of color.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• abstract 
• fanciful 
• fantastic 
• fictional 
• hypothetical 
• imagined www.thesaurus.com
• theoretical 
• unreal 
• whimsical