imaginary

imaginary — adjective

1. Created by your imagination rather than being part of the real, physical world —

1.adjectiveB2
Definition

Created by your imagination rather than being part of the real, physical world — for example, an imaginary fear, a pretend friend, or a kingdom you describe in a story.

Example

As a child, Aoi had an imaginary friend named Pip who lived under the table.

collocation: imaginary friend

The border between the two regions is purely imaginary and not on any real map.

pattern: purely imaginary for emphasis

Common collocations
  • imaginary friend
  • imaginary world
  • imaginary line
  • imaginary fear
  • imaginary number
Synonyms
  • fictional

    used for characters and events created for stories, novels, or films; does not suggest personal fantasy

  • unreal

    broader in scope — covers anything not matching reality, including dreams, illusions, and abstract concepts

  • made-up

    informal; can suggest deliberate invention (e.g. an excuse or a name)

Antonyms
  • real

    existing in fact, not only in the mind

  • actual

    emphasises factual existence rather than mental creation

Grammar Patterns

imaginary + noun

be + imaginary

Common Mistakes

She has an imaginative friend.
She has an imaginary friend.
'imaginative' means creative or full of ideas; 'imaginary' means not real, existing only in the mind.

Word family

Synonym discussion

Sense: adjective/1

Imaginary, fictional, and unreal all describe things that are not real, but they differ in how they are not real. Imaginary stresses that something exists only in a person's mind as a product of their own thoughts, such as an imaginary fear or an imaginary friend that only one person believes in. Fictional describes people, events, or places created as part of a story, book, or film, where everyone understands they are invented for artistic purposes — for example, a fictional character in a novel. Unreal is the broadest term, used for anything that does not match reality, whether imaginary, fictional, or simply impossible, like an unreal expectation. Made-up is more informal and often suggests deliberate invention for a specific purpose, such as a made-up excuse or a made-up name. A dragon in a novel is fictional; a dragon you alone believe you saw is imaginary; a dragon that breaks every law of physics is unreal.

imaginary ↗fictional ↗unreal ↗made-up

Common collocations

Nouns

Adverbs

  • purely imaginary
  • completely imaginary
  • totally imaginary

Phrases

  • only imaginary
  • not real but imaginary

Etymology

LatinFrenchEnglish

From Latin 'imaginarius' (pertaining to an image or mental picture), which comes from 'imago' (image, likeness). The word entered English in the late 1300s through Old French 'imaginaire', originally meaning 'produced by mental imagery'.