IMAGINATION

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does imagination mean? 

• IMAGINATION (noun)
  The noun IMAGINATION has 3 senses:

1. the formation of a mental image of something that is not perceived as real and is not present to the senses

2. the ability to form mental images of things or events

3. the ability to deal resourcefully with unusual problems

  Familiarity information: IMAGINATION used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• IMAGINATION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The formation of a mental image of something that is not perceived as real and is not present to the senses

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

imagination; imaginativeness; vision

Context example:

imagination reveals what the world could be

Hypernyms ("imagination" is a kind of...):

creative thinking; creativeness; creativity (the ability to create)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "imagination"):

fictitious place; imaginary place; mythical place (a place that exists only in imagination; a place said to exist in fictional or religious writings)

fancy (imagination or fantasy; held by Coleridge to be more casual and superficial than true imagination)

fantasy; phantasy (imagination unrestricted by reality)

dream; dreaming (imaginative thoughts indulged in while awake)

imaginary being; imaginary creature (a creature of the imagination; a person that exists only in legends or myths or fiction)

Derivation:

imagine (form a mental image of something that is not present or that is not the case)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The ability to form mental images of things or events

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

imagery; imagination; imaging; mental imagery

Context example:

he could still hear her in his imagination

Hypernyms ("imagination" is a kind of...):

representational process (any basic cognitive process in which some entity comes to stand for or represent something else)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "imagination"):

mind's eye (the imaging of remembered or invented scenes)

vision (a vivid mental image)

envisioning; picturing (visual imagery)

dream; dreaming (a series of mental images and emotions occurring during sleep)

chimaera; chimera (a grotesque product of the imagination)

evocation (imaginative re-creation)

make-believe; pretence; pretense (imaginative intellectual play)

Derivation:

imagine (form a mental image of something that is not present or that is not the case)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The ability to deal resourcefully with unusual problems

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

imagination; resource; resourcefulness

Context example:

a man of resource

Hypernyms ("imagination" is a kind of...):

cleverness; ingeniousness; ingenuity; inventiveness (the power of creative imagination)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "imagination"):

armory; armoury; inventory (a collection of resources)

 Context examples 

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

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

That awful journal gets hold of my imagination and tinges everything with something of its own colour.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

My imagination ran riot, and still I could not sleep.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

“See the value of imagination,” said Holmes.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He was a large-muscled, stolid sort of a man, in whom little imagination was coupled with immense initiative, and who possessed, withal, loyalty and affection as sturdy as his own strength.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

It seemed to my imagination as if the portrait had grown womanly, and the original remained a child.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I have an Irish imagination which makes the unknown and the untried more terrible than they are.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

They display imagination without raising interest.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

The smallness of the rooms above and below, indeed, and the narrowness of the passage and staircase, struck her beyond her imagination.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

I walked a little while on the pavement after tea, thinking of you; and I beheld you in imagination so near me, I scarcely missed your actual presence.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)