- imagination
- I(New American Roget's College Thesaurus)Mental imageryNouns1. imagination, imaginativeness, originality, invention, fancy, creativeness, inspiration; mind's eye; verve, improvisation.2. (image of perfection) ideality, idealism; romanticism, utopianism, castle building; dreaming; reverie, trance, somnambulism. See nonexistence, insubstantiality.3. (types of illusions) conception, concept, excogitation (see thought); cloudland, wonderland, dreamland, fairyland; flight of fancy, pipe dream; brainstorm, brainchild; imagery; conceit, figment [of the imagination]; myth, dream, vision, shadow, chimera, gate of horn, ivory gate; phantasm, unreality, illusion, hallucination, mirage, fantasy; whim, whimsy; vagary, rhapsody, romance, extravaganza; bugbear, nightmare; castles in the air or Spain; Utopia, Atlantis, Hesperides, Seven Cities of Cibola, Shangri-la, Xanadu, Laputa, Nephelococcygia; New Harmony, Oneida Community, Happy Valley, Agapemone, Arcadia, Avalon, Brook Farm, Cockaigne, El Dorado, Erewhon, [land of] Goshen; fabrication, creation, coinage; fiction, stretch of the imagination (see exaggeration).Slang, tripping without luggage. See heaven.4. imaginer, idealist, romanticist, visionary; romancer, dreamer; enthusiast; rainbow chaser; tilter at windmills.Verbs — imagine, fancy, conceive, visualize; idealize, realize; drum, make, or think up, dream (up), pull out of a hat; daydream; create, originate, cook up, devise, hatch, formulate, invent, coin, fabricate; improvise; set one's wits to work, strain one's imagination; rack, ransack, or cudgel one's brains; excogitate, work up, think out; give play to the imagination, indulge in reverie; conjure up a vision; suggest itself (see thought). Informal, see stars, see things.Adjectives — imagined, made-up, imaginary; starry-eyed; imagining, imaginative; original, inventive, creative, fertile, fecund; fictitious; fabulous, legendary, mythical, mythological; chimerical, visionary; notional; fancy, fanciful, fantastic[al]; whimsical; fairy, fairylike; romantic, high-flown, flighty, extravagant, out of this world, enthusiastic, Utopian, quixotic; ideal, unreal, in the clouds; unsubstantial, out of thin air (see insubstantiality); illusory (see error).Phrases — dreams go by contraries; dreams retain the infirmities of our character; morning dreams come true.Quotations — The quick dreams, the passion-wingèd Ministers of thought (Percy Bysshe Shelley), The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind (Sigmund Freud), [Dreams] are the work of poor dramatists (Max Beerbohm), Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter (John Keats), Where there is no imagination, there is no horror (A. Conan Doyle), Vision is the art of seeing things invisible (Jonathan Swift), What the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth (John Keats), Imagination is more important than knowledge (Albert Einstein), I have a dream (Martin Luther King).II(Roget's IV) n.1. [Power to visualize]Syn. inventiveness, creativity, fancy, mind's eye, ingenuity, artistry, imaginativeness, invention, originality, vision, resourcefulness, intelligence, thoughtfulness, impressionableness, acuteness, mental agility, sensitivity, mental receptivity, suggestibility, visualization, fictionalization, dramatization, pictorialization, insight, mental adaptability, creative ability, right brain; see also mind 1 .2. [A product of the power to visualize]III(Roget's 3 Superthesaurus) n.mind's eye, mental imagery, fabrication, visualization, *mental gymnastics, fantasy, illusion, reverie, dream world, figment, fancy, *castle in Spain, delusion, creativity, enterprise, inventiveness. ''The true magic carpet.''—Norman Vincent Peale. ''A ladder to the fourth dimension.''—Elbert Hubbard. ''A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership.''—Ambrose Bierce.IV(Roget's Thesaurus II) noun The power of the mind to form images: fancy, fantasy, imaginativeness. See REAL, THOUGHTS.
English dictionary for students. 2013.
