Webster's English Dictionary

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imagination

imag.i.na.tion \im-.aj-*-'na--sh*n\ n 1: the act or power of forming a 
   mental image of something not present to t he senses or never before wholly 
   perceived in reality 2a: creative ability  2b: ability to confront and deal 
   with a problem : RESOURCEFULNESS  3a: a creation of the mind; esp : an 
   idealized or poetic creation  3b: fanciful or empty assumption  4: popular 
   or traditional belief or conception  mental images of things not before 
   one. IMAGINATION is the most general term and the freest from derogatory 
   connotation; it may apply to the representation either of what is 
   remembered, or of what has never been experienced in its entirety, or of 
   what is actually nonexistent; FANCY applies esp. to the power of inventing 
   the novel and unreal by altering or recombining the elements of reality; 
   FANTASY implies the unrestrained and often extravagant or delusive 
   operation of the fancy SYN syn IMAGINATION, FANCY, FANTASY mean the power 
   to form