• Imaginary

    Pronunciation

    • UK IPA: /ɪˈmadʒɪn(É™)ɹi/

    Origin

    From Middle French imaginaire, from Latin imāginārius ("relating to images, fancied"), from imāgo.

    Full definition of imaginary

    Adjective

    imaginary

    1. existing only in the imagination
      • AddisonWilt thou add to all the griefs I suffer
        Imaginary ills and fancied tortures?
    2. (mathematics) of a number, having no real part; that part of a complex number which is a multiple of the square root of -1.

    Noun

    imaginary

    (plural imaginaries)
    1. Imagination; fancy. from 16th c.
      • 2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin 2003, p. 324:By then too Mozart's opera, from Da Ponte's libretto, had made Figaro a stock character in the European imaginary and set the whole Continent whistling Mozartian airs and chuckling at Figaresque humour.
    2. (mathematics) An imaginary quantity. from 18th c.
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