Imaginal disks (Zoöl.), masses of hypodermic cells, carried by the
larvæ of some insects after leaving the egg, from which masses the
wings and legs of the adult are subsequently formed.
Im*ag"i*nant (?), a. [L. imaginans, p. pr. of imaginari: cf. F.
imaginant.] Imagining; conceiving. [Obs.] Bacon. -- n. An imaginer.
[Obs.] Glanvill.
Im*ag"i*na*ri*ly (?), a. In a imaginary manner; in imagination. B.
Jonson.
Im*ag"i*na*ri*ness, n. The state or quality of being imaginary;
unreality.
Im*ag"i*na*ry (?), a. [L. imaginarius: cf. F. imaginaire.] Existing
only in imagination or fancy; not real; fancied; visionary; ideal.
Wilt thou add to all the griefs I suffer Imaginary ills and fancied
tortures?
Addison.
Imaginary calculus See under Calculus. -- Imaginary expression or
quantity (Alg.), an algebraic expression which involves the impossible
operation of taking the square root of a negative quantity; as,
√-9, a + b √- 1. -- Imaginary points, lines, surfaces, etc.
(Geom.), points, lines, surfaces, etc., imagined to exist, although by
reason of certain changes of a figure they have in fact ceased to have
a real existence.
Syn. -- Ideal; fanciful; chimerical; visionary; fancied; unreal;
illusive.
Im*ag"i*na*ry, n. (Alg.) An imaginary expression or quantity.
Im*ag"i*nate (?), a. Imaginative. [Obs.] Holland.
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.