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imagination - 5 dictionary results
im⋅ag⋅i⋅na⋅tion
[i-maj-uh-ney-shuh
n] 
–noun
| 1. | the faculty of imagining, or of forming mental images or concepts of what is not actually present to the senses. |
| 2. | the action or process of forming such images or concepts. |
| 3. | the faculty of producing ideal creations consistent with reality, as in literature, as distinct from the power of creating illustrative or decorative imagery. Compare fancy (def. 2). |
| 4. | the product of imagining; a conception or mental creation, often a baseless or fanciful one. |
| 5. | ability to face and resolve difficulties; resourcefulness: a job that requires imagination. |
| 6. | Psychology. the power of reproducing images stored in the memory under the suggestion of associated images (reproductive imagination) or of recombining former experiences in the creation of new images directed at a specific goal or aiding in the solution of problems (creative imagination). |
| 7. | (in Kantian epistemology) synthesis of data from the sensory manifold into objects by means of the categories. |
| 8. | Archaic. a plan, scheme, or plot. |
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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|
Link To imagination
| i·mag·i·na·tion (ĭ-māj'ə-nā'shən) n.
Synonyms: These nouns refer to the power of the mind to form images, especially of what is not present to the senses. Imagination is the most broadly applicable: "In the world of words, the imagination is one of the forces of nature" (Wallace Stevens). |
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Imagination
Im*ag`i*na"tion\, n. [OE. imaginacionum, F. imagination, fr. L. imaginatio. See Imagine.]1. The imagine-making power of the mind; the power to create or reproduce ideally an object of sense previously perceived; the power to call up mental imagines. Our simple apprehension of corporeal objects, if present, is sense; if absent, is imagination. --Glanvill. Imagination is of three kinds: joined with belief of that which is to come; joined with memory of that which is past; and of things present, or as if they were present. --Bacon. 2. The representative power; the power to reconstruct or recombine the materials furnished by direct apprehension; the complex faculty usually termed the plastic or creative power; the fancy. The imagination of common language -- the productive imagination of philosophers -- is nothing but the representative process plus the process to which I would give the name of the "comparative." --Sir W. Hamilton. The power of the mind to decompose its conceptions, and to recombine the elements of them at its pleasure, is called its faculty of imagination. --I. Taylor. The business of conception is to present us with an exact transcript of what we have felt or perceived. But we have moreover a power of modifying our conceptions, by combining the parts of different ones together, so as to form new wholes of our creation. I shall employ the word imagination to express this power. --Stewart. 3. The power to recombine the materials furnished by experience or memory, for the accomplishment of an elevated purpose; the power of conceiving and expressing the ideal. The lunatic, the lover, and the poet Are of imagination all compact . . . The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, And as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name. --Shak. 4. A mental image formed by the action of the imagination as a faculty; a conception; a notion. --Shak. Syn: Conception; idea; conceit; fancy; device; origination; invention; scheme; design; purpose; contrivance. Usage: Imagination, Fancy. These words have, to a great extent, been interchanged by our best writers, and considered as strictly synonymous. A distinction, however, is now made between them which more fully exhibits their nature. Properly speaking, they are different exercises of the same general power -- the plastic or creative faculty. Imagination consists in taking parts of our conceptions and combining them into new forms and images more select, more striking, more delightful, more terrible, etc., than those of ordinary nature. It is the higher exercise of the two. It creates by laws more closely connected with the reason; it has strong emotion as its actuating and formative cause; it aims at results of a definite and weighty character. Milton's fiery lake, the debates of his Pandemonium, the exquisite scenes of his Paradise, are all products of the imagination. Fancy moves on a lighter wing; it is governed by laws of association which are more remote, and sometimes arbitrary or capricious. Hence the term fanciful, which exhibits fancy in its wilder flights. It has for its actuating spirit feelings of a lively, gay, and versatile character; it seeks to please by unexpected combinations of thought, startling contrasts, flashes of brilliant imagery, etc. Pope's Rape of the Lock is an exhibition of fancy which has scarcely its equal in the literature of any country. -- "This, for instance, Wordsworth did in respect of the words `imagination' and `fancy.' Before he wrote, it was, I suppose, obscurely felt by most that in `imagination' there was more of the earnest, in `fancy' of the play of the spirit; that the first was a loftier faculty and gift than the second; yet for all this words were continually, and not without loss, confounded. He first, in the preface to his Lyrical Ballads, rendered it henceforth impossible that any one, who had read and mastered what he has written on the two words, should remain unconscious any longer of the important difference between them." --Trench. The same power, which we should call fancy if employed on a production of a light nature, would be dignified with the title of imagination if shown on a grander scale. --C. J. Smith.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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Language Translation for : imagination
Spanish:
imaginación,
German:
die Vorstellung,
Japanese:
想像力
Main Entry: imag·i·na·tion
Pronunciation: im-"aj-&-'nA-sh&n
Function: noun
: an act or process of forming a conscious idea ormental image of something never before wholly perceived in reality by the one forming the images (as through a synthesis of remembered elements of previous sensory experiences or ideas as modified byunconscious defense mechanisms); also : the ability or gift of forming such conscious ideas or mental images especially for the purposes of artistic or intellectual creation
Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, © 2002 Merriam-Webster, Inc.
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imagination
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
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Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
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Copyright © 2009, Dictionary.com, LLC. All rights reserved.
