imagination
Americannoun
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the faculty of imagining, or of forming mental images or concepts of what is not actually present to the senses.
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the action or process of forming such images or concepts.
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the faculty of producing ideal creations consistent with reality, as in literature, as distinct from the power of creating illustrative or decorative imagery.
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the product of imagining a conception or mental creation, often a baseless or fanciful one.
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ability to face and resolve difficulties; resourcefulness.
a job that requires imagination.
- Synonyms:
- thought, enterprise, ingenuity
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Psychology. the power of reproducing images stored in the memory under the suggestion of associated images reproductive imagination or of recombining former experiences in the creation of new images directed at a specific goal or aiding in the solution of problems creative imagination.
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(in Kantian epistemology) synthesis of data from the sensory manifold into objects by means of the categories.
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Archaic. a plan, scheme, or plot.
noun
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the faculty or action of producing ideas, esp mental images of what is not present or has not been experienced
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mental creative ability
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the ability to deal resourcefully with unexpected or unusual problems, circumstances, etc
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(in romantic literary criticism, esp that of S. T. Coleridge) a creative act of perception that joins passive and active elements in thinking and imposes unity on the poetic material Compare fancy
Related Words
See fancy.
Other Word Forms
- imaginational adjective
- nonimaginational adjective
Etymology
Origin of imagination
First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English, Middle French, from Latin imāginātiōn- (stem of imāginātiō ) “mental image, fancy,” equivalent to imāgināt(us), past participle of the verb imāginārī imagine ( imāgin-, stem of imāgō image + -ātus -ate 1 ) + -iōn- -ion
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Her vivid imagination would "conjure up the worse eventualities".
From BBC
His siblings and parents asked for privacy as they grieve the loss of “a man who lived with intensity, imagination, and heart.”
From Los Angeles Times
Just like 2024’s troubled “It Ends with Us” — the first big-screen adaptation of one of Hoover’s novels— and last fall’s “Regretting You,” “Reminders of Him” isn’t good by any stretch of the imagination.
From Salon
Laughing at my own overwrought imagination, I moistened the paper in the basin water and worked the stamp gently free.
From Literature
Disney has always been a place of imagination, innovation and infinite potential.”
From Los Angeles Times
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
