imaginary

American  

[ih-maj-uh-ner-ee] / ɪˈmædʒ əˌnɛr i /

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

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noun

• imaginaries
  plural

1. Mathematics. imaginary number.

imaginary British  

/ -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

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

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

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• imaginaries
  plural

Etymology

Origin of imaginary

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

Explanation

Anything imaginary is not real: it only exists in someone's head. We hate to ruin your day, but unicorns are imaginary. Our imagination allows us to think of anything we want, and things that only exist in our minds are imaginary. Many children have imaginary friends: people they talk to who aren't real. Mythological beings like dragons, Zeus, and Thor are imaginary. A fantasy about marrying a movie star is probably imaginary, because that isn't likely to happen.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

imaginary imaginaries

Squat — or hinge — backward, moving your arms forward as you lower your hips into an imaginary chair.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 18, 2026

Place your hands out as if they are pressing on an imaginary wall.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 18, 2026

But in the treasures of “The Museum of Imaginary Musical Instruments” there is something else: the “enduring fascination” of the possible, no less important for being imaginary.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026

My imaginary scenario could still be decades in the future, but a reality where people pay for air doesn’t seem like a joke anymore.

From Salon ● Jul. 19, 2026

She began prancing boldly and pecked at the air like a boxer taking punches at an imaginary foe.

From "The Unseen Guest" by Maryrose Wood

“We have to, as artists, find the courage to disrupt convention, practice the spreading of hope and cultivate new stories and imaginaries that challenge divisive binaries.”

From Seattle Times ● Oct. 24, 2023

“I love how he weaves in the African oceanic imaginaries, the long durée of African historical inter-relationships with the world, and with itself,” Owuor added.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 18, 2021

The theorem is here referred to partly on account of its bearing on the theory of imaginaries in geometry.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 8 "Cube" to "Daguerre, Louis" by Various

Poncelet throughout his work makes continual use of the foregoing theories of imaginaries and infinity, and also of the before-mentioned theory of reciprocal polars.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 8 "Cube" to "Daguerre, Louis" by Various

Of the world surrounding him which refused definitions he said, "because there is no image there is nothing except imaginaries."

From Gilbert Keith Chesterton by Maisie Ward

Related Words

• abstract
• fanciful
• fantastic
• fictional
• hypothetical
• imagined
• theoretical
• unreal
• whimsical