imaginary

imaginary

English

Etymology

From Middle English ymaginarie, ymagynary, from Latin imāginārius (“relating to images, fancied”), from imāgō.

The mathematical sense derives from René Descartes's use (of the French imaginaire) in 1637, La Geometrie, to ridicule the notion of regarding non-real roots of polynomials as numbers.[1] Although Descartes' usage was derogatory, the designation stuck even after the concept gained acceptance in the 18th century.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɪˈmædʒɪn(ə)ɹi/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ɪˈmæd͡ʒɪˌnɛɹi/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Adjective

imaginary (comparative more imaginary, superlative most imaginary)

1. Existing only in the imagination.

   Unicorns are imaginary.

   • 1712 (date written), [Joseph] Addison, Cato, a Tragedy. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson, […], published 1713, OCLC 79426475, Act I, scene iv, page 1:

     Wilt 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 ${\\displaystyle {\\sqrt {-1}}}$ (called imaginary unit).

Synonyms

• (existing only in the imagination): all in one's head

Derived terms

• imaginarily
• imaginariness
• imaginarity
• nonimaginary
• unimaginary

 

Expressions

• imaginary axis
• imaginary geometry
• imaginary number
• imaginary part
• imaginary unit
• purely imaginary → purely imaginary number

 

Translations

existing in the imagination

Afrikaans: denkbeeldig, imaginêr Arabic: خِيَّالِيّ‎ (ar) (ḵiyyāliyy) Aragonese: please add this translation if you can Armenian: երեւակայական (hy) (erewakayakan) Assamese: please add this translation if you can Asturian: imaxinariu Azerbaijani: xəyali (az), uydurulmuş, uydurma (az), qondarma (az) Belarusian: уя́ўны (ujáŭny), выабража́льны (vyabražálʹny), вы́думаны (výdumany) Bengali: কাল্পনিক (bn) (kalpnik) Bulgarian: въобража́ем (bg) (vǎobražáem), изми́слен (bg) (izmíslen) Catalan: imaginari (ca) Cherokee: please add this translation if you can Chichewa: please add this translation if you can Chinese: Mandarin: 幻想 (zh) (huànxiǎng) Corsican: please add this translation if you can Czech: pomyslný (cs), imaginární (cs) Danish: imaginær, indbildt Dhivehi: please add this translation if you can Dutch: denkbeeldig (nl), ingebeeld (nl) Estonian: imaginaarne Finnish: (in compounds) imaginaari-, kuvitteellinen (fi) French: imaginaire (fr) Galician: imaxinario Georgian: წარმოსახვითი (c̣armosaxviti) German: eingebildet (de), imaginär (de) Greek: φανταστικός (el) (fantastikós) Ancient: φαντασιώδης (phantasiṓdēs) Gujarati: please add this translation if you can Hausa: please add this translation if you can Hawaiian: moeā Hebrew: דִּמְיוֹנִי‎ (he) (dimyoní) Hindi: कल्पनिक (kalpanik) Hungarian: képzeletbeli (hu) Icelandic: ímyndaður Ido: imaginala (io), imaginita (io), fiktiva (io) Igbo: please add this translation if you can Indonesian: khayalan (id), khayal (id) Interlingua: imaginari Irish: íomháineach, samhailteach, samhlaithe, samhlaitheach, taibhriúil Italian: immaginario (it) Japanese: 架空の (ja) (かくうの, kakū no), 幻想的な (ja) (げんそうてきな, gensōteki na) Kazakh: қиялдағы (qiäldağy) Khmer: (please verify) ដែលមានតែក្នុងមនោគតិ (dêlméantêknŏngmônoŭktĕ) Korean: 환상적(幻想的) (ko) (hwansangjeok), 가상적(假想敵) (ko) (gasangjeok) Latin: imaginarius, phantasticus Latvian: iedomāts Lithuanian: įsivaizduojamas Luganda: please add this translation if you can Luxembourgish: imaginär Macedonian: имагина́рен (imagináren), замислен (zamislen) Malayalam: സാങ്കൽപ്പിക (sāṅkalppika) Marathi: काल्पनिक n (kālpanik) Mirandese: manginário, eimaginário Norwegian: Bokmål: tenkt (no), imaginær (no), innbilt Nynorsk: tenkt Pashto: please add this translation if you can Persian: خیالی‎ (fa) (xiyâli) Piedmontese: imaginari Polish: zmyślony (pl), umowny (pl), imaginacyjny Portuguese: imaginário (pt) Punjabi: please add this translation if you can Rajasthani: please add this translation if you can Romanian: imaginar (ro), închipuit (ro) Russian: вообража́емый (ru) (voobražájemyj), мни́мый (ru) (mnímyj), вы́мышленный (ru) (výmyšlennyj), вы́думанный (ru) (výdumannyj) Scots: please add this translation if you can Scottish Gaelic: mac-meanmnach Serbo-Croatian: Cyrillic: и̏магина̄ран, ѝзмишљен Roman: ȉmagināran (sh), ìzmišljen (sh) Sicilian: please add this translation if you can Sindhi: please add this translation if you can Sinhalese: please add this translation if you can Slovak: pomyselný, imaginárny Slovene: namišljen, imaginaren (sl), navidezen Somali: please add this translation if you can Spanish: imaginario (es) Swahili: -a kubuni Swedish: imaginär (sv), inbillad (sv) Tajik: хаёлӣ (xayolī) Tamil: please add this translation if you can Telugu: please add this translation if you can Thai: จินตภาพ (jin-dtà-pâap) Turkish: sanal (tr), hayalî (tr) Turkmen: please add this translation if you can Ukrainian: уя́вний (ujávnyj), ви́гаданий (výhadanyj) Welsh: dychmygol (cy)

non-real part of a complex number

Afrikaans: imaginêr Bulgarian: имагине́рен (bg) (imaginéren) Czech: imaginární (cs) m Dutch: imaginair (nl) Finnish: imaginaarinen (fi), (in compounds) imaginaari- Galician: imaxinario German: imaginär (de) Greek: φανταστικός (el) (fantastikós) Hungarian: imaginárius (hu), képzetes Indonesian: imajiner (id) Latvian: imaginārs Polish: urojona f Portuguese: imaginário (pt) Russian: мни́мый (ru) (mnímyj) Spanish: imaginario (es) Swedish: imaginär (sv)

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.

   • 2015, Adrian Daub, Elisabeth Krimmer, Goethe Yearbook 22, page 96:

     While Oil, its extraction, and the global petroculture and its role in transforming the planet's climate undoubtedly play a crucial role in the Antropocene imaginary — to the extent that petrofiction has been construed not just a a genre but as a periodizing gesture of "petromodernity" — it would hamper both the imagination and the root of petrofiction to restrict the range of this term to the encounter with fossil fuels within a carbon imaginary.

2. (mathematics) An imaginary quantity. [from 18th c.]
3. (sociology) The set of values, institutions, laws, and symbols common to a particular social group and the corresponding society through which people imagine their social whole.

References

1. Earliest Known Uses of Some of the Words of Mathematics (I)