Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Having existence only in the imagination; unreal.
- adj. Mathematics Of or being the coefficient of the imaginary unit in a complex number.
- adj. Mathematics Of, involving, or being an imaginary number.
- adj. Mathematics Involving only a complex number of which the real part is zero.
- n. Mathematics An imaginary number.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Existing only in imagination or fancy; due to erroneous belief or conception; not real; baseless; fancied: opposed to actual.
- In mathematics, unreal and feigned in accordance with the theory of imaginary quantities.
- Synonyms Ideal, fanciful, fancied, visionary, unreal, shadowy, Utopian. Imaginary and imaginative are never synonymous: imaginary means existing only in the imagination; imaginative means possessed of or showing an active imagination.
- n. In algebra, an imaginary expression or quantity.
Wiktionary
- adj. existing only in the imagination
- adj. mathematics of a number, having no real part; that part of a complex number which is a multiple of the square root of -1.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Existing only in imagination or fancy; not real; fancied; visionary; ideal.
- n. (Alg.) An imaginary expression or quantity.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. not based on fact; unreal.
- n. (mathematics) a number of the form a+bi where a and b are real numbers and i is the square root of -1
Etymologies
- From Latin imāginārius ("relating to images, fancied"), from imāgo. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Because Larry’s Fundy brain is so locked by his literalism he simply thinks “imaginary numbers” are *actually imaginary* ,that is to say not real, they do not exist.”
The next time ID people cry 'censorship' - The Panda's Thumb
“In fact, psychologists use the term "imaginary audience" to describe this heightened state of vigilance that is especially strong during adolescence.”
“But on the other hand, as this warmth is felt differently by different temperaments, so what we call imaginary things affect different minds.”
“I write fantasy in imaginary worlds, but my settings are historically based.”
“It wasn't so much fun imagining loosing her senses, and she refers to the imaginary loss of her eyesight and hearing as "harrowing.”
The Wall Street Journal: Actress Eva Green's Perfect Sense of Character
“Their interests by virtue of public statements and the work made collectively between 1961 and 1966 appear largely designed to dissolve what in theater is known as the imaginary "fourth wall" dividing audiences from artists.”
“But her reference to "these signs" -- as if placards charging individual troops with war crimes are commonplace at a "standard anti-war demonstration" -- reveals that a powerful imaginary is at work.”
The Huffington Post: Mark Engler: Spitting in the Faces of U.S. Troops
“Act in imaginary circumstances in order to learn more either about the self, or about a certain culture, or about others.”
“It should be a requirement that damages be documented, not in imaginary figures but in real life dollars as to the effect that the claimed damages are to be.”
“Vacuuming and dusting and mopping up the kitchen had helped calm Alvirah, and while she was working she had put on her “thinking cap,” as she called the imaginary head covering that helped her find solutions to problems.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘imaginary’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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ghost
This is Ghost List 2 ( the kind that go 'boo!' ) :P
( open list )
more:
http://www.wordnik.com/lists/macabrephantom, spectral, specter, spectre, spooky, poltergeist, haunt, spirit, banshee, cryptic, shadow, phantasm and 311 more...
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numerix
calculus, polyhedron, volume, geometry, acute, pentagon, i, pi, imaginary, catastrophe, integrate, function and 18 more...
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dream words
( randomness, dreams, creativity )
words or phrases related to all things dreamyphantasmagoria, illusion, imagination, slumber, sky, moon, cloud nine, lucid, fantasy, creativity, somnambulism, dreamer and 39 more...
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Mathematics in real life
else if, else, iff, delta, iteration, recursion, recursive, integral, differential, triangulate, cashier can't mak..., days until payday and 8 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6689 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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colleen's words ii
sibilant, sundry, spindle, distaff, device, mortar, pestle, scythe, flail, thresh, frown, elementary and 495 more...
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Words with Method to their Madness
Patterned words! Any word that alternates vowels and consonants with no consonants next to each other, and no vowels next to each other. (And a letter limit of no less than 5)
eleven, every, vowel, lemon, alibi, hopes, limit, cures, caravan, emirate, united arab emirates, honorificabilitud... and 114 more...
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Mathaphors √
Concepts o' dem numblurs; polysemy mathematicalia.
integer, factor, ∮, geometric, exponential, equation, aboutequals, variable, obtuse, triangle, angle, circle and 92 more...
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SAT
abandon,extreme e..., abash,to humiliate, abate,to lessen, abbreviate,to sho..., abridge, abdicate,to forma..., aberration,depart..., abnormality, abet,to encourage, abhor,to hate, abide,to follow o..., abject,utterly ho... and 2228 more...
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SAT
alleviate,to lighten, altercation,a qua..., amicable,friendly, ambiguous,vague, put something to ..., unclear, adaptation,A comp..., albatross,a signi..., indifferent, cordial nature, to mitigate, affinity,a natura... and 2229 more...
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_mark's list
Words I like!
( personal list, favorite words, randomness )psy, nanobot, success, smack, vibration, microcosmic, springgraph, marksmanship, estranged, homoerotic, flex, fiasco and 1691 more...
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2007bee-r02
2007 Scripps National Spelling Bee Round 2
query, tendency, danceable, parachute, malignant, brutal, humanely, lyrically, deductible, shindig, gravel, embroidered and 274 more...
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TBH
Life is timshel negentropy.
collective noun, terms of venery, tramp stamp, snot, polish, snotty, smartass, remark, shitload, pun, champion, trigger and 75 more...
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Your number's up.
Types and sets of numbers
natural numbers, integers, rational, surd, irrational, real, imaginary, complex, transcendental, surreal, prime, secant numbers and 53 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for imaginary.
rolig Well, it can be done; it just takes some imagination.
The revery alone will do… Mar 2, 2009
qroqqa And in fact the water would have to be a cuboidal volume sufficient to contain a hemisphere of Saturn, and that's got some gravity of its own (that's an emphatic 'some' . . . I wonder how you punctuate that?); not to mention the rigid material for the bath. Mar 2, 2009
seanahan That's really not such a great analogy if you think about it too much. I'm pretty sure the gravitational pull of Saturn would do some things do a bathtub full of water. The whole idea of floating doesn't make a lot of sense on this scale. Mar 2, 2009
qroqqa Saturn is the only planet in our solar system that is less dense than water. If you could build an imaginary gigantic bathtub, Saturn would float in it.
—National Geographic, trying to palm it off on NASA. No, if you built an imaginary bath, the water would still all fall through. You need to imagine building a real gigantic bath for this one. Feb 23, 2009
thebighenry The auto-generated definition is mathematically correct for a complex number, though in common usage it also applies to an imaginary number. The mathematically correct definition for imaginary number is:
(n): (mathematics) a number of the form "bi" where "b" is a real number and i is the square root of -1 May 13, 2008
oroboros Imagine a comment. Nov 5, 2007