Imagination

• POS: Noun
• HYPHEN: im=ag=i=na=tion

CIDE DICTIONARY

Imagination, n. [OE. imaginacionum, F. imagination, fr. L. imaginatio. See Imagine.].

•  The imagine-making power of the mind; the power to create or reproduce ideally an object of sense previously perceived; the power to call up mental imagines.  [1913 Webster]

  "Our simple apprehension of corporeal objects, if present, is sense; if absent, is imagination."  [1913 Webster]

  "Imagination is of three kinds: joined with belief of that which is to come; joined with memory of that which is past; and of things present, or as if they were present."  [1913 Webster]
•  The representative power; the power to reconstruct or recombine the materials furnished by direct apprehension; the complex faculty usually termed the plastic or creative power; the fancy.  [1913 Webster]

  "The imagination of common language -- the productive imagination of philosophers -- is nothing but the representative process plus the process to which I would give the name of the “comparative.”"  [1913 Webster]

  "The power of the mind to decompose its conceptions, and to recombine the elements of them at its pleasure, is called its faculty of imagination."  [1913 Webster]

  "The business of conception is to present us with an exact transcript of what we have felt or perceived. But we have moreover a power of modifying our conceptions, by combining the parts of different ones together, so as to form new wholes of our creation. I shall employ the word imagination to express this power."  [1913 Webster]
•  The power to recombine the materials furnished by experience or memory, for the accomplishment of an elevated purpose; the power of conceiving and expressing the ideal.  [1913 Webster]

  "The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
  Are of imagination all compact . . .
  The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
  Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven,
  And as imagination bodies forth
  The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
  Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
  A local habitation and a name."  [1913 Webster]
•  A mental image formed by the action of the imagination as a faculty; a conception; a notion.  Shak.

  "The same power, which we should call fancy if employed on a production of a light nature, would be dignified with the title of imagination if shown on a grander scale."  [1913 Webster]

Syn. -- Conception; idea; conceit; fancy; device; origination; invention; scheme; design; purpose; contrivance.

OXFORD DICTIONARY

Imagination, n.
1 a mental faculty forming images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses.
2 the ability of the mind to be creative or resourceful.
3 the process of imagining.

Etymology

ME f. OF f. L imaginatio -onis (as IMAGINE)

DEVIL DICTIONARY

Imagination

n. A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership.

THESAURUS

Imagination

apparition, brainchild, bubble, chimera, creativity, delirium, eidolon, fancy, fantasque, fantasy, fiction, figment, hallucination, idle fancy, illusion, imagery, imaginativeness, imagining, ingenuity, insight, inspiration, insubstantial image, intelligence, invention, inventiveness, maggot, make-believe, myth, phantasm, phantom, romance, sick fancy, thick-coming fancies, thinking, thought, trip, vapor, vision, visualization, whim, whimsy, wildest dreams, wit

ROGET THESAURUS

Imagination

Imagination

N imagination, originality, invention, fancy, inspiration, verve, warm imagination, heated imagination, excited imagination, sanguine imagination, ardent imagination, fiery imagination, boiling imagination, wild imagination, bold imagination, daring imagination, playful imagination, lively imagination, fertile imagination, fancy, mind's eye, such stuff as dreams are made of, ideality, idealism, romanticism, utopianism, castle-building, dreaming, phrensy, frenzy, ecstasy, extasy, calenture, reverie, trance, day dream, golden dream, somnambulism, conception, Vorstellung, excogitation, a fine frenzy, cloudland, dreamland, flight of fancy, fumes of fancy, thick coming fancies, creation of the brain, coinage of the brain, imagery, conceit, maggot, figment, myth, dream, vision, shadow, chimera, phantasm, phantasy, fantasy, fancy, whim, whimsey, whimsy, vagary, rhapsody, romance, gest, geste, extravaganza, air drawn dagger, bugbear, nightmare, flying Dutchman, great sea serpent, man in the moon, castle in the air, pipe dream, pie-in-the-sky, chateau en Espagne, Utopia, Atlantis, happy valley, millennium, fairyland, land of Prester John, kindgom of Micomicon, work of fiction, Arabian nights, le pot au lait, dream of Alnashar, illusion, phantom, Fata Morgana, vapor, stretch of the imagination, mythogenesis, idealist, romanticist, visionary, mopus, romancer, dreamer, somnambulist, rhapsodist, castle-buildier, fanciful projector, imagined, ben trovato, air drawn, airbuilt, imagining, imaginative, original, inventive, creative, fertile, romantic, high flown, flighty, extravagant, fanatic, enthusiastic, unrealistic, Utopian, Quixotic, ideal, unreal, in the clouds, in nubibus, unsubsantial, illusory, fabulous, legendary, mythical, mythic, mythological, chimerical, imaginary, visionary, notional, fancy, fanciful, fantastic, fantastical, whimsical, fairy, fairy-like, gestic, a change came o'er the spirit of my dream, aegri somnia vana, dolphinum appingit sylvis in fluctibus aprum, fancy light from fancy caught, imagination rules the world, l'imagination gallope, le jugement ne va que le pas, musaeo contingens cuncta lepore, tous songes sont mensonges, Wahrheil und Dichtung, DIVISION II COMMUNICATION OF IDEAS.