Search the Dictionary

imagination, generally in the highest sense of the word. In all the higher departments of imaginative art, nature still constitues an important element. Mure.

To attribute a human form or personality to. You may see imaginative children every day anthropomorphizing. Lowell.

ervor of soul; strong excitement of feeling on behalf of a cause or a subject; ardent and imaginative zeal or interest; as, he engaged in his profession with enthusiasm. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. Emerson.

ed by what engages it; one who is influenced by a peculiar; fervor of mind; an ardent and imaginative person. Enthusiasts soon understand each other. W. Irving.

Creative; imaginative. [R.] "The formful brain." Thomson.

he quality of being handsome. Handsomeness is the mere animal excellence, beauty the mere imaginative. Hare.

Characterized by imagination; imaginative; also, given to the use or rhetorical figures or imagins.

Imaginative. [Obs.] Holland.

Imaginative. [R.] Chapman.

The faculty of inventing; imaginative faculty; skill or ingenuity in contriving anything new; as, a man of invention. They lay no less than a want of invention to his charge; a capital crime, . . . for a poet is a maker. Dryden.

Giving a strict or literal construction; unimaginative; matter-of fast; -- applied to persons. Literal contract (Law), contract of which the whole evidence is given in writing. Bouvier. -- Literal equation (Math.), an equation in which known quantities are expressed either wholly or in part by means of letters; -- dis…

Adhering to facts; not turning aside from absolute realities; not fanciful or imaginative; commonplace; dry.

evated rational and ethical conception of the laws and forces of the universe; sometimes, imaginative or fantastic philosophical notions.

A composition, not in verse, of which the language is highly imaginative or impassioned; as, a prose poem; the poems of Ossian.

oetry; one who has a particular genius for metrical composition; the author of a poem; an imaginative thinker or writer. The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven. Shak. A poet is a maker, as the word signifies. Dryden. Poet laureate. See under Laureate.…

Expressed in metrical form; exhibiting the imaginative or the rhythmical quality of poetry; as, a poetical composition; poetical prose. Poetic license. See License, n., 4.

Imaginative language or composition, whether expressed rhythmically or in prose. Specifically: Metrical composition; verse; rhyme; poems collectively; as, heroic poetry; dramatic poetry; lyric or Pindaric poetry. "The planetlike music of poetry." Sir P. Sidney. She taketh most delight In music, instruments, and poetry.…

Dull; uninteresting; commonplace; unimaginative; prosy; as, a prosaic person. Ed. Rev. -- Pro*sa"ic*al*ly, adv. -- Pro*sa"ic*al*ness, n.

A dreamy, imaginative habit of mind; a disposition to ignore what is real; as, a girl full of romance.

is likened, in one or more of its aspects, to something else; a similitude; a poetical or imaginative comparison. A good swift simile, but something currish. Shak.