Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Imaginative |
ImaginativeAdjective1. (used of persons or artifacts) marked by independence and creativity in thought or action; "an imaginative use of material"; "the invention of the knitting frame by another ingenious English clergyman"- Lewis Mumford; "an ingenious device"; "had an inventive turn of mind"; "inventive ceramics". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "imaginative" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1615. (references) |
Etymology: Imaginative \Im*ag"i*na*tive\, adjective. [French expression imaginatif.]. (Websters 1913) |
Synonyms: ImaginativeSynonyms: ingenious (adj), inventive (adj). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Imagination | Imagining;Verb: v, imaginative; original, inventive, creative, fertile. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Imaginative |
| English words defined with "imaginative": artistic style ♦ dream, dreaming ♦ energy, Eric Arthur Blair, evocation ♦ farfetched, fictive, Formful ♦ George Orwell ♦ idiom, Imaginal, Imaginate, imaginative comparison, Imaginous, implausible, ingenious, inventive ♦ literary composition, literary work ♦ make-believe, matter-of-fact ♦ Orwell ♦ pretence, pretense, prosaic ♦ radially, resourceful ♦ vigor, vigour, vim. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "imaginative": BUAG ♦ creative thinking. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "imaginative": Formful ♦ Imaginate, Imaginous. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | The noblest thoughts that ever flowed through the hearts of men are contained in its extraordinary, imaginative, and musical mixtures of sounds. (My Fair Lady; writing credit: George Bernard Shaw; Alan Jay Lerner) | |
Movie/TV Titles | An Imaginative Woman (1973) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books |
|
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Author | Quotation |
Edgar Allan Poe | It will be found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Title | Author | Quote |
Scarlet Letter | Hawthorne, Nathaniel | If the imaginative faculty refused to act at such an hour, it might well be deemed a hopeless case. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | Delays or abnormal functioning in (1) social interaction, (2) language used as social communication, or (3) symbolic or imaginative play, with onset before age three. (references) | |
Business | Because European exporters and clothing companies generally have a better knowledge of and a longer tradition within the Argentine market, foreign suppliers will need to be imaginative and flexible to increase their market share. (references) | |
Economic History | Bangladesh | The local agent should be reputable, imaginative, active, politically astute and well connected, and technically competent. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| Speaker | Term | Phrase(s) |
Lyndon B. Johnson | 1963-1969 | Within our cities imaginative programs are needed to landscape streets and to transform open areas into places of beauty and recreation. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "Imaginative" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 99.71% of the time. "Imaginative" is used about 1,042 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 99.71% | 1,039 | 7,159 |
| Noun (proper) | 0.29% | 3 | 202,518 |
| Total | 100.00% | 1,042 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "imaginative": imaginative comparison ♦ imaginative power. Additional references. | |
| Hypenated Usage | |
Ending with "imaginative": over-imaginative. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
imaginative | 19 |
imaginative traveller | 19 |
imaginative murals | 4 |
imaginative traveller.com | 3 |
imaginative play | 3 |
imaginative present | 2 |
imaginative traveler | 2 |
imagery imaginative | 2 |
imaginative travel | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "imaginative"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | imagjinar (fabulous, fancied, fanciful, fantastic, fantastical, fictional, fictitious, fictive, imaginary, unreal, visional, visionary), i përfytyruar (imaginary). (various references) | |
Arabic | ميال إلي التخيل, واسع الخيال (far sighted), خيالي (aerial, chimerical, conceptual, fancied, fanciful, fancy, fantast, fantastic, fictional, fictitious, fictive, figment, ideal, ideational, imaginary, impracticable, mythical, notional, quixotic, romantic, unreal, utopian, visionary), بارع التصوير المجازي. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | творчески (constructive, creative, inventive, original, originative, parturient, positive, productive, seminal), с богато въображение, с богата фантазия, който показва богата фантазия. (various references) | |
Chinese | 有想象力, 富於想像 . (various references) | |
Czech | imaginativní, podnìtný (challenging, interesting, provocative), originální (genuine, novel, original, quaint), nápaditý. (various references) | |
Danish | betydningsindhold (emotive or conscious contents, importance of imaginative). (various references) | |
Finnish | mielikuvituksekas. (various references) | |
French | imaginatif, plein d'imagination. (various references) | |
German | phantasievoll (imaginatively), erfinderisch (ingenious, inventive, originative). (various references) | |
Greek | ευφάνταστοσ, εφευρετικόσ (inventive). (various references) | |
Hebrew | יצורי (conceptive), "מיו י (airy fairy, fabulous, fairy, fancied, fanciful, fantasy, fictitious, illusory, imaginary, phantom, romantic, unreal, utopian, visionary), בעל "מיון (visionary). (various references) | |
Hungarian | képzeletgazdag, képzelõdõ, ötletes (ingenious, nimble, shifty, smart). (various references) | |
Indonesian | daya khayal. (various references) | |
Italian | fantastico (chimeric, crazy, eerie, fabled, fabulous, fancied, fanciful, fantastic, fantastical, imaginary, incredible, marvellous, marvelous, wonderful), fantasioso (fanciful, smashing). (various references) | |
Korean | 상상 (Envisaging, IMAGINATION, Imagining). (various references) | |
Manx | sheiltynagh (conjectural, fanciful, imaginable, imaginary, notional, presumable, putative, speculative, speculator, theoretic, theoretical, theorist, thinkable), kiaddagh (formative). (various references) | |
Norwegian | fantasifull (fanciful). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | imaginativeay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | imaginativo, construtivo (constructive), conceito (concept, conception, idea, maxim, notion, odoriferous, odourless, opinion, proverb, reputation). (various references) | |
Romanian | imaginativ. (various references) | |
Russian | образный (descriptive, figurative), одаренный воображением. (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | imaginativan, maštovit. (various references) | |
Spanish | imaginativo (fanciful). (various references) | |
Swedish | fantasirik (fanciful), fantasifull (chimerical, fanciful, fancy, pregnant). (various references) | |
Thai | เพ้อฝัน (fanciful, romantic). (various references) | |
Turkish | imgesel (fictional, fictitious, imaginary), yaratıcı (architect, author, builder, composer, creative, creator, father, fertile, ingenious, inspired, inventive, inventor, originative, originator, pregnant, procreative, procreator, productive, worker), hayalperest (day dreamer, dreamer, dreamy, escapist, fanciful, illusionist, notional, quixotic, stargazer, vaporous, visionary), hayali (aerial, airy, cardboard box, chimerical, delusive, Faerie, faery, fanciful, fantastic, fantastical, fictional, fictitious, fictive, illusive, illusory, imaginary, insubstantial, phantasmal, spectral, unreal, visionary), hayalci (day dreamer, fanciful, stargazer, visionary, wool gathering, woolgathering), hayal gücü kuvvetli, hayal ürünü (fabulous, fanciful, figment, figment of the imagination, out of whole cloth). (various references) | |
Ukranian | образний (figured, presentative), наділений багатою уявою. (various references) | |
Vietnamese | tưởng tượng (aerial, fictional, fictitious, fictive, imaginary, mythical, mythologic, mythological, visionary), không có thực hay tưởng tượng, gi u tưởng tượng có t i hư cấu sáng tạo. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "imaginative": imaginatively, imaginativeness, imaginativenesses. (additional references) | |
Words ending with "imaginative": overimaginative, unimaginative. (additional references) | |
Words containing "imaginative": unimaginatively. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "imaginative" (pronounced i'ma"junutiv) |
| 5 | -n u t i v | alternative, cognitive, definitive, infinitive, punitive, unimaginative. |
| 4 | -u t i v | accusative, acquisitive, additive, affirmative, alliterative, anticompetitive, argumentative, causative, commemorative, communicative, comparative, competitive, consecutive, conservative, consultative, contemplative, cumulative, curative, decorative, degenerative, demonstrative, derivative, diminutive, dispositive, duplicative, evocative, executive, expletive, exploitative, Federative, figurative, fixative, formative, fugitive, generative, hypersensitive, illustrative, imperative, indicative, informative, initiative, inoperative, inquisitive, insensitive, interpretive, intuitive, laxative, lucrative, narrative, negative, neoconservative, noncompetitive, noncumulative, nonexecutive, normative, nutritive, operative, palliative, participative, pejorative, positive, prerogative, preservative, preventative, primitive, prohibitive, provocative, putative, recuperative, relative, remunerative, rep, repetitive, representative, restorative, secretive, sedative, sensitive, speculative, superlative, talkative, tentative, ultraconservative, uncompetitive, uncooperative, uninformative, unrepresentative, vituperative. |
| 3 | -t i v | abortive, accommodative, accumulative, active, adaptive, addictive, adjective, administrative, adoptive, affective, appointive, appreciative, assaultive, assertive, attentive, attractive, authoritative, automotive, captive, collaborative, collective, combative, conductive, congestive, connective, constructive, contraceptive, cooperative, corrective, corruptive, counterproductive, creative, deceptive, defective, deliberative, descriptive, destructive, detective, digestive, dilutive, directive, disincentive, disparages, disruptive, dissipative, distinctive, distributive, effective, elective, elucidative, eruptive, exhaustive, exploitive, facultative, festive, furtive, hyperactive, imitative, inactive, inattentive, incentive, ineffective, infective, injunctive, innovative, instinctive, instructive, interactive, introspective, invective, inventive, investigative, irrespective, iterative, legislative, locomotive, manipulative, meditative, motive, native, nonautomotive, nonnative, nonproductive, objective, obstructive, octave, overactive, perceptive, perspective, photoconductive, plaintive, predictive, preemptive, presumptive, preventive, proactive, probative, productive, prognosticative, projective, prospective, protective, qualitative, quantitative, radioactive, reactive, receptive, reconstructive, redemptive, redistributive, reflective, refractive, regulative, rehabilitative, reproductive, respective, restive, restrictive, retroactive, retrospective, seductive, selective, stimulative, subjective, substantive, suggestive, superconductive, supportive, unattractive, unproductive, unreceptive, vegetative, vindictive. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-a-e-g-i-i-i-m-n-t-v" | |
-3 letters: agminate, aviating, enigmata, navigate, vaginate, vitamine. | |
-4 letters: amative, amentia, animate, eviting, gateman, ignatia, imagine, intimae, iteming, magenta, magnate, mintage, nametag, teaming, tegmina, vaginae, vantage, vintage, vitamin. | |
-5 letters: agnate, aiming, anemia, aviate, eating, enigma, etamin, gamine, ignite, ingate, inmate, intima, intime, invite, magian, magnet, manage, mating, meting, native, taenia, tamein, taming, tieing, timing, vagina, vimina. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-a-e-g-i-i-i-m-n-t-v" | |
+2 letters: imaginatively, unimaginative. | |
+4 letters: imaginativeness, overimaginative, unimaginatively. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)49 6D 61 67 69 6E 61 74 69 76 65 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references).. -- .- --. .. -. .- - .. ...- . |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01001001 01101101 01100001 01100111 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110100 01101001 01110110 01100101 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)I m a g i n a t i v e |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0049 006D 0061 0067 0069 006E 0061 0074 0069 0076 0065 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)4379677375806786758871 |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Quotations: Familiar 7. Quotations: Fiction 8. Quotations: Non-fiction | 9. Quotations: Speeches 10. Usage Frequency 11. Expressions 12. Expressions: Internet | 13. Translations: Modern 14. Derivations 15. Rhymes 16. Anagrams | 17. Orthography 18. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
