Imaginary
Pronunciation
- UK IPA: /ɪˈmadʒɪn(ə)ɹi/
Origin
From Middle French imaginaire, from Latin imÄginÄrius ("relating to images, fancied"), from imÄgo.
Full definition of imaginary
Adjective
imaginary
- existing only in the imagination
- AddisonWilt thou add to all the griefs I suffer
Imaginary ills and fancied tortures? - (mathematics) of a number, having no real part; that part of a complex number which is a multiple of the square root of -1.
Derived terms
Noun
imaginary
(plural imaginaries)- 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.
- (mathematics) An imaginary quantity. from 18th c.