imagine

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ɪˈmædʒ.ɪn/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English ymagynen, imaginen,^[2][3] borrowed from Old French imaginer (“to sculpt, carve, paint, decorate”),^[3][2] a learned borrowing from Latin imāginor (“I picture to myself, imagine”),^[3][2][4] and Late Latin imāginō “I form an image of, represent”,^[3][5][6] from imāgō (“an image, likeness”),^[3][2] the source of image.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

“To form a mental image of”: 1340,^[7] about 1340 in Barnhart,^[2] the mid-14th century.^[3] To devise or plot something to be done is from 1351.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The sense “to think, suppose, fancy” is recorded from about 1380.^[2][3][7] To ponder or meditate is from about 1386, and is obsolete.^[7] To form an idea about something not known with certainty, to guess, is from 1548.^[7] Johnson (1755) defined it as “to fancy; to paint in the mind”.^[8] Imagination is also from 1340,^[2] imaginable from about 1380, in Chaucer,^[2] and imaginary from about 1395, in the Wycliffe Bible.^[2]

Timeline

• 1340 – to form a mental image of, and imagination.^[7][2]
• 1351 – to plot.^[7]
• c. 1380 – to suppose, and imaginable.^[2][7]
• c. 1395 – imaginary.^[2]
• 1548 – to guess.^[7]

Modern meaning

Verb

1. To form a picture of something in the mind.
2. To think or suppose; to guess.
3. To believe something without good reason: you're imagining things.
4. To use the imagination.

Word family

• imaginer
• imaginable
• imaginal
• imaginary
• imagination
• imaginative
• Imagineer
• preimagine

Related words

• image
• imagery
• imago
• imitate

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.