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What is "imaginary"

Crossword clues for imaginary

imaginary
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
imaginary
adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
conversation
▪ If such individuals and such imaginary conversations could provide Mrs Clinton with guidance, she had every right to seek them out.
line
▪ In simple terms the fleet has to start through an imaginary line usually drawn between a mast and buoy.
▪ Because at impact the club face of his driver was not square to the imaginary line that runs to the target.
▪ Centreline An imaginary line drawn lengthways down the middle of the board.
▪ A maple-leaf flag painted on a mailbox, an imaginary line across the dark stretch of highway.
▪ The particles in the; lattice are joined by imaginary lines called lattice lines.
▪ On day ninety-two we had crossed the imaginary line of 1, 000 miles between us and California.
▪ Cap line an imaginary line across the top of capital letters.
▪ Draw an imaginary line from the centre of eye to under the cheekbone and start there, pushing upwards.
time
▪ What is the point of introducing the concept of imaginary time?
▪ But the imaginary time direction is at right angles to real time.
▪ However, the beginning in imaginary time will not be a singularity.
▪ But the histories of the particles in imaginary time would continue.
▪ The three space directions and imaginary time would form a space-time that was closed in on itself, without boundaries or edges.
▪ Only if we could picture the universe in terms of imaginary time would there be no singularities.
▪ This means that what happened in imaginary time could be calculated.
▪ And if you know the history of the universe in imaginary time, you can calculate how it behaves in real time.
world
▪ The individual suspends his critical judgement and involvement in external reality to becoming passively absorbed in an imaginary world.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Frankie was the kind of guy who lived in an imaginary world all of his own.
▪ He pointed an imaginary gun at me and pretended to shoot.
▪ Many young children have imaginary playmates.
▪ The events described in the book are imaginary.
▪ When Linda was a child she had an imaginary friend called Booboo.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ As if Pike was behind an imaginary glass wall, cut off from the rest of the Church.
▪ Cadets are in disarray, Directing Staff shouting advice and encouragement, and the imaginary enemy winning!
▪ Father saw me throwing imaginary punches on the stairs, and asked me to show him.
▪ If such individuals and such imaginary conversations could provide Mrs Clinton with guidance, she had every right to seek them out.
▪ She'd always had to have an imaginary life simultaneously, as the real one was inadequate.
▪ The individual suspends his critical judgement and involvement in external reality to becoming passively absorbed in an imaginary world.
▪ We've used an imaginary case history to illustrate them.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Imaginary

Imaginary \Im*ag"i*na*ry\, a. [L. imaginarius: cf. F. imaginaire.] Existing only in imagination or fancy; not real; fancied; visionary; ideal.

Wilt thou add to all the griefs I suffer Imaginary ills and fancied tortures?
--Addison.

Imaginary calculus See under Calculus.

Imaginary expression or Imaginary quantity (Alg.), an algebraic expression which involves the impossible operation of taking the square root of a negative quantity; as, [root]-9, a + b [root]-1.

Imaginary points, lines, surfaces, etc. (Geom.), points, lines, surfaces, etc., imagined to exist, although by reason of certain changes of a figure they have in fact ceased to have a real existence.

Syn: Ideal; fanciful; chimerical; visionary; fancied; unreal; illusive.

Imaginary

Imaginary \Im*ag"i*na*ry\, n. (Alg.) An imaginary expression or quantity.

Related phrases:
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
imaginary

"not real," late 14c., ymaginaire, from imagine + -ary; or else from Late Latin imaginarius "seeming, fancied," from imaginari. Imaginary friend (one who does not exist) attested by 1789.

Wiktionary
imaginary

a. 1 existing only in the imagination 2 (context mathematics English) of a number, having no real number part; that part of a complex number which is a multiple of the square root of -1. n. 1 imagination; fancy. (from 16th c.) 2 (context mathematics English) An imaginary quantity. (from 18th c.)

Related phrases:
WordNet
imaginary

adj. not based on fact; dubious; "the falsehood about some fanciful secret treaties"- F.D.Roosevelt; "a small child's imaginary friends"; "her imagined fame"; "to create a notional world for oneself" [syn: fanciful, imagined, notional]

Related phrases:
Wikipedia
Imaginary

Imaginary can refer to:

  • Imaginary (sociology), a concept in sociology
  • The Imaginary (psychoanalysis), a concept by Jacques Lacan
  • Imaginary number, a concept in mathematics
  • Imaginary time, a concept in physics
  • Imagination, a mental faculty
  • Object of the mind, an object of the imagination
  • Imaginary friend
  • Imaginary Records, a record label
Imaginary (sociology)

The imaginary, or social imaginary is the set of values, institutions, laws, and symbols common to a particular social group and the corresponding society through which people imagine their social whole. The concept of the imaginary has attracted attention in Sociology, Philosophy, and Media studies.

Imaginary (exhibition)

Imaginary is an interactive traveling exhibition by the Mathematischen Forschungsinstituts Oberwolfach created for the Year of Mathematics 2008 in Germany. Its intention is to display visualizations, interactive installations, virtual realities, 3D objects and their theoretical background in algebraic geometry and in singularity theory in an attractive and understandable manner.

The exhibition was held in 23 countries, and attracted over 1 million visitors.

Related phrases:

Usage examples of "imaginary".

The core is placed upon the end of the ridge abutting upon the inside of the loop, and so the imaginary line crosses no looping ridge, which is necessary.

Enif, Alnath, and Merak to lead ver all the way around the imaginary ship, pointing out hundreds of tiny changes in the sky and explaining what they meant, stopping now and then to show ver off to their friends.

But on certain nights, following fierce committee meetings at the Amalgamated Education Corporation, I must calm down by closing my eyes and reading the imaginary paper in imaginary Portuguese at length.

He said that men cured in this way, and enabled to discard the grape system, never afterward got over the habit of talking as if they were dictating to a slow amanuensis, because they always made a pause between each two words while they sucked the substance out of an imaginary grape.

I invented on the spot three purely imaginary stories, making a great display of tender sentiments and of ardent love, but without alluding to amorous enjoyment, particularly when she seemed to expect me to do so.

Now this simple attitude entails a number of dangerous consequences: first, an inclination to seek out some cheap form of archaism or some imaginary past forms of happiness that people did not, in fact, have at all.

Because the New England Dog Training Club meets in the Cambridge Armory on Thursday nights, it is especially important to point out that the characters and the dog training club in this novel are imaginary.

The marble Venus which Malipieri saw with it is imaginary, but I was also taken to see the beautiful statue of Augustus, now in the Braccio Nuovo of the Vatican, on the spot where it came to light in the Villa of Livia, in 1863.

Nancy stubbed out his cigarillo, then he flicked an imaginary speck of ash off his yellow gloves.

He anticipated the unbought cittern next, but instead there came again that deep throbbing, the turntable of the imaginary gramophone let run down.

But the imaginary bliss I had enjoyed had so taken my fancy that I could not rest till I realized it.

He should not begin to work wonders from His early years: for men would have deemed the Incarnation to be imaginary and would have crucified Him before the proper time.

Parnell and spread them among three imaginary characters: Christina MacCarthy, Dacre, and Murdoch Lynch.

The event acquitted her of all the fancifulness, and all the selfishness of imaginary complaints.

The bewailings of scaramouch, the dull and spiritless despair of Fastidio, offered a picture which would have made me laugh heartily if the danger had been imaginary and not real.