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

plural

imaginaries

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

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

Etymology

Origin of imaginary

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

Example Sentences

Pilots log hundreds of hours chasing imaginary cars, bikes, and skiers through digital landscapes to practice—so that when the whole world is watching, they can reach their own rarefied plane of athletic zen.

From The Wall Street Journal

In captivity, at least one chimpanzee appeared to drag imaginary blocks across the floor after playing with real wooden ones.

From Science Daily

So let’s pause our imaginary walk and actually name what we’re seeing.

From Salon

Other schools have pupils pretend to be rental-property landlords or spend a semester designing an imaginary family’s financial plan.

From The Wall Street Journal

Its vision of the past is imaginary and it has no future, but its destructive energy has changed the world.

From Salon

Related Words

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