Imagination

[Im*ag`i*na·tion]

Imagination refers to the process of forming images or concepts in the mind, often images of things that are not really there. That shark in your bathtub must have been in your imagination or was it?

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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.

Noun
the formation of a mental image of something that is not perceived as real and is not present to the senses; "popular imagination created a world of demons"; "imagination reveals what the world could be"

Noun
the ability to deal resourcefully with unusual problems; "a man of resource"

Noun
the ability to form mental images of things or events; "he could still hear her in his imagination"

n.
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.

n.
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.

n.
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.

n.
A mental image formed by the action of the imagination as a faculty; a conception; a notion.

Imagination

Im*ag`i*na"tion , n. [OE. imaginacionum, F. imagination, fr. L. imaginatio. See Imagine.] 1. 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.
Our simple apprehension of corporeal objects, if present, is sense; if absent, is imagination.
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.
2. 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.
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."
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.
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.
3. 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.
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.
4. A mental image formed by the action of the imagination as a faculty; a conception; a notion. Shak. Syn. -- Conception; idea; conceit; fancy; device; origination; invention; scheme; design; purpose; contrivance. -- Imagination, Fancy. These words have, to a great extent, been interchanged by our best writers, and considered as strictly synonymous. A distinction, however, is now made between them which more fully exhibits their nature. Properly speaking, they are different exercises of the same general power -- the plastic or creative faculty. Imagination consists in taking parts of our conceptions and combining them into new forms and images more select, more striking, more delightful, more terrible, etc., than those of ordinary nature. It is the higher exercise of the two. It creates by laws more closely connected with the reason; it has strong emotion as its actuating and formative cause; it aims at results of a definite and weighty character. Milton's fiery lake, the debates of his Pandemonium, the exquisite scenes of his Paradise, are all products of the imagination. Fancy moves on a lighter wing; it is governed by laws of association which are more remote, and sometimes arbitrary or capricious. Hence the term fanciful, which exhibits fancy in its wilder flights. It has for its actuating spirit feelings of a lively, gay, and versatile character; it seeks to please by unexpected combinations of thought, startling contrasts, flashes of brilliant imagery, etc. Pope's Rape of the Lock is an exhibition of fancy which has scarcely its equal in the literature of any country. -- "This, for instance, Wordworth did in respect of the words 'bfimagination' and 'bffancy.' Before he wrote, it was, I suppose, obscurely felt by most that in 'bfimagination' there was more of the earnest, in 'bffancy' of the play of the spirit; that the first was a loftier faculty and gift than the second; yet for all this words were continually, and not without loss, confounded. He first, in the preface to his Lyrical Ballads, rendered it henceforth impossible that any one, who had read and mastered what he has written on the two words, should remain unconscious any longer of the important difference between them." Trench.
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.

Imaginational

Im*ag`i*na"tion*al , a. Pertaining to, involving, or caused by, imagination.

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.

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Usage Examples

America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.

All the breaks you need in life wait within your imagination, Imagination is the workshop of your mind, capable of turning mind energy into accomplishment and wealth.

All the works of man have their origin in creative fantasy. What right have we then to depreciate imagination.

A lady's imagination is very rapid it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.

A certificate of live birth is not the same thing by any stretch of the imagination as a birth certificate.

A poet ought not to pick nature's pocket. Let him borrow, and so borrow as to repay by the very act of borrowing. Examine nature accurately, but write from recollection, and trust more to the imagination than the memory.

A man at work, making something which he feels will exist because he is working at it and wills it, is exercising the energies of his mind and soul as well as of his body. Memory and imagination help him as he works.

A writer should have the precision of a poet and the imagination of a scientist.

Misspelled Form

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Other Usage Examples

A great wind is blowing, and that gives you either imagination or a headache.

A discerning eye needs only a hint, and understatement leaves the imagination free to build its own elaborations.

All the best have something in common, a regard for reality, an agreement to its primacy over the imagination.

A young imagination is bold, likes to make bigger leaps. It likes to, well, imagine that the dustbuster is a dinosaur that the computer mouse is a hotrod that the box is a cave that the rawhide is a torch... or a baton... or something.

A place makes a deep impression on you when you're young. It lives with you. It's like your childhood. It fertilises the imagination.

A disaster where marble has been substituted for imagination.

Although Bill Finger literally typed the scripts in the early days, he wrote the scripts from ideas that we mutually collaborated on. Many of the unique concepts and story twists also came from my own fertile imagination.

A child who has never fantasized about having other parents is seriously lacking in imagination.

A financier is a pawnbroker with imagination.