English
imagine
Imagine comes from Middle English ymagynen, from Middle French imaginer, from Latin imāginor, from imāgō ‘copy, likeness, image’.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEimāgō1‘a copy, likeness’
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEimāginor1‘to imagine’accusative singular of imāgō
- Middle Frenchc. 1400–1600imaginer1
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500ymagynen1‘to imagine’
- Englishearliest quotation c. 1595–1596imagine1
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
- 1 Wiktionary, English imagine
- Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1595–1596, William Shakespeare, A Midsommer Nights Dreame: “Or in the night, imagining ſome feare, / How…”.
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEimāgōWiktionary, English imagine‘a copy, likeness’
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEimāginorWiktionary, English imagine‘to imagine’accusative singular of imāgō
- Middle Frenchc. 1400–1600imaginerWiktionary, English imagine
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500ymagynenWiktionary, English imagine‘to imagine’
- Englishearliest quotation c. 1595–1596imagineWiktionary, English imagine. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1595–1596, William Shakespeare, A Midsommer Nights Dreame: “Or in the night, imagining ſome feare, / How…”
Word family
English words that share an ancestor with imagine, grouped by the ancestor they share, most familiar first.
through Proto-Indo-European *h₂eym- ‘to imitate’
14 more relatives in the full family tree
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Today it means
verb To form a mental image of something; to envision or create something in one's mind.
Sources
Sources: Wiktionary, “imagine”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.
Etymograph / Latin imāgō / imagine