imaginable

Etymology

The OED takes it partly as borrowed from Middle French imaginable, also ymaginable, recorded in Old French from about 1298,^[2] and partly as borrowed from Late Latin imāginābilis (“capable of being imagined”), used from the 4th century and by Boethius in the 6th;^{[2][3][4][5][6]} the Middle English Dictionary gives only the Latin word.^[7] The Latin adjective is formed from imāginor (“to picture to oneself”) with -bilis, the source of -able,^[3][4][8] and the Oxford Dictionary of English traces the verb to imāgō (“image, likeness”).^[9] The OED compares Catalan imaginable of the late 13th century and Italian immaginabile of before 1332.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Capable of being imagined or conceived: about 1400, in a copy of Chaucer's translation of Boethius, which was made about 1380.^[2][7] Etymonline dates the word to the late 14th century,^[3] Dictionary.com to 1325–75.^[8]

Semantic evolution

In Chaucer's Boece the word belongs to the language of philosophy, setting the things that can be imagined beside those that can be sensed.^[7] Its emphatic use after a superlative or after all, every or no is recorded from 1614.^[2] Johnson (1755) defined it as "possible to be conceived", quoting Tillotson's "the greatest darkness imaginable".^[10]

Timeline

• c. 1400 – capable of being imagined, in Chaucer's Boece.^[2][7]
• 1614 – after a superlative or all, every, no, for emphasis.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Able to be imagined; conceivable.^[4][2][5]
2. Used after a superlative or with all, every or no for emphasis: the coldest winter imaginable, in every imaginable colour.^[4][2]

Word family

• imaginability
• imaginably
• imaginableness

Related words

• imagine
• image
• imagination
• imaginary
• unimaginable

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
8. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.