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  

/ ɪˈmædʒɪnərɪ, -dʒɪnrɪ /

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

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Etymology

Origin of imaginary

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

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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

With both sides sensibly resolved to avoid chasing imaginary grand bargains, the two leaders could focus on their common interests.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 28, 2026

Ill-advisedly, Wladyka introduces imaginary sequences in which Haru invents dance numbers out of ordinary situations.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 25, 2026

But he would expect the "novelty to soon wear off", and would be "surprised" if many people returned to place more than about 10 imaginary orders.

From BBC ● Sep. 23, 2026

The number was doing something more interesting than keeping track of imaginary thrift.

From Salon ● Sep. 6, 2026

To learn this, mathematicians had to venture into the world of the imaginary, a bizarre world where circles are lines, lines are circles, and infinity and zero sit on opposite poles.

From "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" by Charles Seife

“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

It will be recollected that the expression number and the correlative epithet numerical were at the outset used in a wide sense, as extending to imaginaries.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 9, Slice 7 "Equation" to "Ethics" by Various

I cannot say; it was all a bundle of imaginaries.

From The Path to Rome by Hilaire Belloc

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

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Related Words

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

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