I. ə̇ˈmajəˌnerē, -ri adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Latin imaginarius, from imaginari to imagine + -arius -ary
1.
a. : having no real existence : existing only in imagination or fancy : unreal , fancied , fictitious , hypothetical
to guard the cattle against their real and their imaginary foes, the wolves and the witches — J.G.Frazer
b. : formed, characterized, or ascribed outside the evidence of reality : shaped, endowed, or attributed imaginatively or arbitrarily
the statue of John Harvard … is an imaginary likeness; no portrait of Harvard is known to exist — American Guide Series: Massachusetts
2. obsolete : of the nature of or suggesting an image
3. obsolete : imaginative
4. : containing or related to the imaginary unit
Synonyms:
fanciful , visionary , fantastic , chimerical , quixotic : imaginary stresses lack of reality; it indicates an existence, formation, or ascription by imagination, not fact
those nervous persons who may be terrified by imaginary dangers are often courageous in the face of real danger — Havelock Ellis
In relation to things, fanciful indicates formation or conditioning by free, unrestrained fancy or imagination; in relation to people, it indicates a tendency to give free rein to the imagination
fanciful tale of his own exploits tells how he was carried, wounded, down the mountainside in a big buckskin bag tied to the back of a wrinkled squaw — American Guide Series: California
one may perhaps without being too fanciful see in his art something of the magic of the Celt — Irving Babbitt
visionary applies to a person given to seeing visions or to the ideas and notions from visions rather than real facts and hence impractical, wild, and impossible of fulfillment or fruition
planning, as his visionary father might have done, to go to Brazil to pick up a fortune — Carl Van Doren
unless, therefore, our philosophic vision receives technical development … it may rightly be condemned as unsubstantial and visionary — M.R.Cohen
fantastic and its variant fantastical heighten the notion of extravagant fancy far transcending the usual, ordinary, or real
one of those eoan errors to which we are subject before the clear commonplace of daylight orders and moderates our tenebrous and fantastical imaginations — Rose Macaulay
a fantastic world inhabited by monsters of iron and steel — Louis Bromfield
two heroes may mangle each other in every impossible and fantastic way, beyond the bounds of the faintest shadow of verisimilitude — H.O.Taylor
chimerical suggests the wild, utterly unreal, and extravagantly imaginary characteristics of creations of classical mythology
the defeat was more complete, more humiliating … the hopes of revival more chimerical — Times Literary Supplement
as chimerical as a specter — Bernard Smith
quixotic describes completely unrealistic and impractical devotion to romantic or chivalric ideals
was quixotic, and would not permit a secret service and spies — G.K.Chesterton
among the last quixotic acts of his life was an attempt to set up a Greek academy for aspiring authors — Alfred Kreymborg
be so quixotic as to stand upon principles at the risk of losing the business — R.M.Cunningham
II. noun
( -es )
1. obsolete : a figment of imagination
2. : a complex number (as 2+3i ) whose imaginary part is not zero