The ability to form mental images of things or events.

synonyms: imagination, imaging, mental imagery.

Roget 515: imagination; originality; invention; fancy; inspiration; verve.    warm imagination, heated imagination, excited imagination, sanguine imagination, ardent imagination, fiery imagination, boiling imagination, wild imagination, bold imagination, daring imagination, playful imagination, lively imagination, fertile imagination, fancy.    mind's eye;" such stuff as dreams are made of" [Tempest]. ideality, idealism; romanticism, utopianism, castle-building.    dreaming; phrensy^†, frenzy; ecstasy, extasy^†; calenture etc. (delirium) 503^†; reverie, trance; day dream, golden dream; somnambulism.    conception, Vorstellung [G.], excogitation^†, a fine frenzy;" cloudland^†, dreamland; flight of fancy, fumes of fancy; thick coming fancies" [Macbeth]; creation of the brain, coinage of the brain; imagery.    conceit, maggot, figment, myth, dream, vision, shadow, chimera; phantasm, phantasy; fantasy, fancy; whim, whimsey^†, whimsy; vagary, rhapsody, romance, gest^†, geste^†, extravaganza; air drawn dagger, bugbear, nightmare.    flying Dutchman, great sea serpent, man in the moon, castle in the air, pipe dream, pie-in-the-sky, chateau en Espagne [Fr.]; Utopia, Atlantis^†, happy valley, millennium, fairyland; land of Prester John, kindgom of Micomicon; work of fiction etc. (novel) 594; Arabian nights^†; le pot au lait [Fr.]; dream of Alnashar etc. (hope) 858^†.    illusion etc. (error) 495; phantom etc. (fallacy of vision) 443; Fata Morgana etc. (ignis fatuus) [Lat.] 423; vapor etc. (cloud) 353; stretch of the imagination etc. (exaggeration) 549; mythogenesis^†.    idealist, romanticist, visionary; mopus^†; romancer, dreamer; somnambulist; rhapsodist etc. (fanatic) 504; castle-buildier, fanciful projector.    ... show more

Roget 521: figure of speech; facon de parler [Fr.], way of speaking, colloquialism.    phrase etc. 566; figure, trope, metaphor, enallage^†, catachresis^†; metonymy [Gramm.], synecdoche [Sem.]; autonomasia^†, irony, figurativeness etc. adj.; image, imagery; metalepsis^†, type, anagoge^†, simile, personification, prosopopoeia^†, allegory, apologue^†, parable, fable; allusion, adumbration; application.    exaggeration, hyperbole etc. 549.    association, association of ideas (analogy) 514.1 ... show more

Roget 554: representation, representment^†; imitation etc. 19; illustration, delineation, depictment^†; imagery, portraiture, iconography; design, designing; art, fine arts; painting etc. 556; sculpture etc. 557; engraving etc. 558; photography, cinematography; radiography, autoradiography [Bioch.], fluorography [Chem], sciagraphy^†.    personation, personification; impersonation; drama etc. 599.    picture, photo, photograph, daguerreotype, snapshot; X-ray photo; movie film, movie; tracing, scan, TV image, video image, image file, graphics, computer graphics, televideo, closed-circuit TV.    copy etc. 21; drawing, sketch, drought, draft; plot, chart, figure, scheme.    image, likeness, icon, portrait, striking likeness, speaking likeness; very image; effigy, facsimile.    figure, figure head; puppet, doll, figurine, aglet^†, manikin, lay-figure, model, mammet^†, marionette, fantoccini^†, waxwork, bust; statue, statuette.    ideograph, hieroglyphic, anaglyph, kanji [Jap.]; diagram, monogram.    map, plan, chart, ground plan, projection, elevation (plan) 626.    ichnography^†, cartography; atlas; outline, scheme; view etc. (painting) 556; radiograph, scotograph^†, sciagraph^†; spectrogram, heliogram^†.    ... show more

Dutch: beeldspraak