imagery

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English imagerie,^[2][3] borrowed from Anglo-Norman imagerie (also ymagerye), work representing objects, recorded in Anglo-Norman from the late 12th century,^[4][5] formed from image (“likeness, figure”) and the suffix -erie.^[4][6] The ODE derives it instead from imager (“to make an image”), and Klein from imagier (“painter”).^[7][2] The base noun goes back to Latin imāgō (“copy, likeness”).^[6][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Carved or painted work representing objects; statues and carvings collectively: c. 1350, in a Middle English psalter.^[4][6]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English it also meant figured work on a fabric, embroidery (from Gower, before 1393, to 1777), and among the Lollards (1395) the use of images in worship, which their critics called idolatry.^[4] The art of making images is recorded from c. 1425.^[4] The rhetorical sense, the use of figures of speech and vivid description, arose in the 1580s,^[4][6] and the mental sense, images formed in the mind, in 1595; it is now chiefly a term of psychology.^[4] Johnson (1755) still put "pictures; statues" first.^[9] In the 20th century the word was applied to pictures produced from invisible radiation, by radar, ultrasound or X-rays (1935), and to visual symbolism in film and art (1962).^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1350 – carved or painted figures.^[4]
• a1393 – figured work on textiles (obsolete).^[4]
• 1395 – the worship of images (obsolete).^[4]
• 1583 – figurative language.^[4][6]
• 1595 – mental images.^[4]
• 1646 – scenery.^[4]
• 1935 – images made from radiation.^[4]
• 1962 – visual symbolism in film.^[4]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. Figurative or descriptive language, especially in a literary work: The poem's imagery is drawn from the sea.
2. Visual symbolism in art or film.
3. Images collectively, especially pictures produced by cameras, satellites or scanners.
4. (psychology) Mental images, or the kind of mental images a person forms.
5. Statues, carvings and other made images collectively.

Word family

• imagerially

Related words

• image
• imagine
• imitate

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
3. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
6. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.