- existing only in the imagination; fanciful; unreal
- Math. designating or of the square root of a negative quantity, or of a complex number that is not real
Origin of imaginary
Classical Latin imaginarius
A little girl playing an imaginary game.
- An example of something imaginary is an invisible friend.
- An example of something imaginary is the square root of negative 16.
The definition of imaginary is not real or existing only in the mind, or a square root of a negative number.
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"imaginary." YourDictionary, n.d. Web. 05 December 2018. <https://www.yourdictionary.com/imaginary>.
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imaginary. (n.d.). Retrieved December 05th, 2018, from https://www.yourdictionary.com/imaginary
imaginary
Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fifth Edition Copyright © 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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MLA Style
"imaginary." YourDictionary, n.d. Web. 05 December 2018. <https://www.yourdictionary.com/imaginary>.
APA Style
imaginary. (n.d.). Retrieved December 05th, 2018, from https://www.yourdictionary.com/imaginary
imaginary
adjective
- Having existence only in the imagination; unreal.
- Mathematics a. Of or being the coefficient of the imaginary unit in a complex number.b. Of, involving, or being an imaginary number.c. Involving only a complex number of which the real part is zero.
noun
pl. i·mag·i·nar·ies MathematicsAn imaginary number.
Related Forms:
- i·mag′i·nar′i·ly
adverb
- i·mag′i·nar′i·ness
noun
THE AMERICAN HERITAGE® DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, FIFTH EDITION by the Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries. Copyright © 2016, 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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Cite this page
MLA Style
"imaginary." YourDictionary, n.d. Web. 05 December 2018. <https://www.yourdictionary.com/imaginary>.
APA Style
imaginary. (n.d.). Retrieved December 05th, 2018, from https://www.yourdictionary.com/imaginary
Adjective
(comparative more imaginary, superlative most imaginary)
- existing only in the imagination
- (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
(plural imaginaries)
- Imagination; fancy. [from 16th c.]
- (mathematics) An imaginary quantity. [from 18th c.]
Origin
From Middle French imaginaire, from Latin imāginārius (“relating to images, fancied”), from imāgo.
English Wiktionary. Available under CC-BY-SA license.
Link to this page
Cite this page
MLA Style
"imaginary." YourDictionary, n.d. Web. 05 December 2018. <https://www.yourdictionary.com/imaginary>.
APA Style
imaginary. (n.d.). Retrieved December 05th, 2018, from https://www.yourdictionary.com/imaginary
Sentence Examples
- He paused at the door and mimed a jump shot at an imaginary hoop.
- It is an imaginary history of the patriarchs and their descendants.
- Brinkley's imaginary star-parallaxes (Phil.
- I can get into enough trouble without people squeezing imaginary insults out of my words.
- Such a mass of imaginary matter as we are now considering may be compared to a collection of heavy particles held in position relatively to one another by a system of light spiral springs, one spring being supposed to connect each pair of adjacent particles.
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