imagination

Roget category 515

4. Words relating to the intellectual faculties
› 4.7. Creative thought
››

#515. Imagination

noun

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.

verb

imagine, fancy, conceive — idealize, realize — dream, dream of, dream up — give to airy nothing a local habitation and a give to airy nothing a local habitation and a name" [Midsummer Night's Dream]. create, originate, devise, invent, coin, fabricate — improvise, strike out something new.
set one's wits to work — strain one's invention, crack one's invention — rack one's brains, ransack one's brains, cudgel one's brains — excogitate^† — brainstorm.
give play, give the reins, give a loose to the imagination, give fancy — indulge in reverie.
visualize, envision, conjure up a vision — fancy oneself, represent oneself, picture, picture-oneself, figure to oneself — vorstellen [G.].
float in the mind — suggest itself etc. (thought) 451.

adjective

imagined etc. v. — ben trovato [It] — air drawn, airbuilt^†.
imagining etc. v., imaginative — original, inventive, creative, fertile.
romantic, high flown, flighty, extravagant, fanatic, enthusiastic, unrealistic, Utopian, Quixotic.
ideal, unreal — in the clouds, in nubibus [Lat.] — unsubsantial^† etc. 4 — illusory etc. (fallacious) 495.
fabulous, legendary — mythical, mythic, mythological — chimerical — imaginary, visionary — notional — fancy, fanciful, fantastic, fantastical^† — whimsical — fairy, fairy-like — gestic^†.

phrase

a change came o'er the spirit of my dream" [Byron]; aegri somnia vana [Lat.] — dolphinum appingit sylvis in fluctibus dolphinum appingit sylvis in fluctibus aprum [Horace]; fancy light from fancy caught" [Tennyson]; imagination rules the world" [Napoleon]; l'imagination gallope [Fr.], le jugement ne va que le pas [Fr.] — musaeo contingens cuncta lepore [Lat.] [Lucretius]; tous songes sont mensonges [Fr.] — Wahrheil und Dichtung [G.].

The content on this page comes straight from Project Gutenberg Etext of Roget's Thesaurus No. Two, which consists of the acclaimed work by Peter Mark Roget augmented with more recent material. Some changes were made to the formatting for improved readability.

Bold numbers signify related Roget categories. A dagger symbol (†) indicates archaic words and expressions no longer in common use.

debug info: 0.0022