Etymologically
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imagine

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sense “to think, suppose, fancy” is recorded from about 1380.[2][3][7] To ponder or meditate is from about 1386, and is obsolete.[7] To form an idea about something not known with certainty, to guess, is from 1548.[7] Johnson (1755) defined it as “to fancy; to paint in the mind”.[8]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

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.