Meaning of imagination in English

imagination

noun

/ɪˌmædʒ.ɪˈneɪ.ʃən/ us

/ɪˌmædʒ.əˈneɪ.ʃən/

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B1 [ C or U ]

the ability to form pictures in the mind:

vivid imagination My younger son has a very vivid (= active) imagination.

I can never make up stories - I have absolutely no imagination.

capture someone's imagination I wanted to choose iconic images that captured people's imaginations (= made them very interested).

capture the imagination of For some reason, the story captured the imagination of the public (= made them very interested).

catch someone's imagination Something she said really caught my imagination (= made me very interested).

not by any stretch of the imagination It couldn't by any stretch of the imagination be described as a (= it is certainly not a) beautiful city.

leave nothing to the imagination There's a sex scene in the film that apparently leaves nothing to the imagination (= shows sexual parts of the body very clearly).

Thesaurus: synonyms, antonyms, and examples

imagination

imaginationYou’ve always had a very vivid imagination.
creativityThe aim of the award is to encourage creativity and innovation.
visionHe was a man of great vision.
inventivenessHis domestic designs display an unending inventiveness and account for his best work.
ingenuityThis housewife's ingenuity led to the creation of a number of great new household products.
originalityHer photographic portraits can hardly be accused of lacking originality.

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[ U ]

something that you think exists or is true, although in fact it is not real or true:

Was she paying him a lot of attention or was it just my imagination?

Is it my imagination or is David behaving strangely at the moment?

B1 [ U ]

the ability to think of new ideas:

It's a job that needs someone with a bit of imagination.

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Was it just my imagination or did I hear John's voice in the other room?
He's one of those people with a very vivid imagination - every time he hears a noise he's convinced it's someone breaking in.
The American drive to land a man on the Moon captured the imagination of the whole world.
Her imagination was kindled by the exciting stories her grandmother told her.
One of poetry's functions is to somehow unlock the imagination.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Imagining and conceiving

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You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

Dreaming

(Definition of imagination from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

imagination | American Dictionary

imagination

noun [ U ]

/ɪˌmædʒ·əˈneɪ·ʃən/

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the ability to form mental pictures of people or things, or to have new ideas:

Rafael has a very active imagination (= has many ideas).

(Definition of imagination from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of imagination

imagination

His research focuses on the architectural imagination in technical drawing.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The abstraction by our imagination means we earn the approbation (or disapprobation) from those unlike as well as those like us.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Music offers the opportunity for every child to move on from where they are, in skills, understanding and imagination.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

But first, let us consider some evidence of his visual imagination.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

In 2004, as in 1968, perhaps the best antidote to timidity is the ungovernable wildness of the imagination.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Rather, the focus of inquiry should be on the imagination since both theoretical reason and practical reason make use of imagination in their own way.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The crime attracted interest and scandal and by the second half of the eighteenth century had established a strong hold over the public imagination.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Now, not only was the dramatic content of the written play probing the listener's intellect, but strange new sounds were stretching the imagination.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

These artisans would be more prone to think up foolish schemes created by an imagination uncontrolled by reason and experience.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Her imagination was sleeping, or she had no artistic imagination at all.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

This is reminiscent of the extraordinary relationship which amputees develop with their artificial replacements, revealing a whole inner mysterious world of feeling and imagination.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Travelling in space to ' exotic ' realms evidently encourages the imagination to travel in time.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

What makes this episode resonate as a vernacular form of archaeological thinking buried deep in the literary imagination of the mid-19th century?

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Here that is left to the imagination of the reader and a more quantitative method is used to demonstrate the existence of the pulses.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

It also shows that even radical writers were often unable to dispel the monarchy from their imaginations.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

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These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

Collocations with imagination

imagination

These are words often used in combination with imagination.

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active imagination

The object of his methods was to enhance a natural process of individuation emergent through techniques of active imagination (a sort of controlled daydream).

From the Cambridge English Corpus

fertile imagination

He has a fertile imagination.

From the

Hansard archive

Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0

historical imagination

This was not simply a failure of historical imagination, nor was it a product of intellectual carelessness or political myopia.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

See all collocations with imagination

What is the pronunciation of imagination?

Translations of imagination

in Chinese (Traditional)

想像力, 幻覺, 幻想…

Meaning of imagination in English

imagination | American Dictionary

Examples of imagination

Collocations with imagination

imagination

Translations of imagination

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