different between imaginary vs seeming

English

Etymology

From Middle French imaginaire, from Latin im?gin?rius (“relating to images, fancied”), from im?g?.

The mathematical sense derives from René Descartes's use (of the French imaginaire) in 1637, La Geometrie, to ridicule the notion of regarding non-real roots of polynomials as numbers. Although Descartes' usage was derogatory, the designation stuck even after the concept gained acceptance in the 18th century.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /??mæd??n(?)?i/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /??mæd???n??i/

Adjective

imaginary (comparative more imaginary, superlative most imaginary)

1. Existing only in the imagination.

   • Wilt thou add to all the griefs I suffer / Imaginary ills and fancied tortures?

2. (mathematics, of a number) Having no real part; that part of a complex number which is a multiple of ${\displaystyle {\sqrt {-1}}}$ (called imaginary unit).

Synonyms

• (existing only in the imagination): all in one's head

Derived terms

• imaginarily
• imaginariness
• imaginarity
• imaginary number
• imaginary unit

Translations

Noun

imaginary (plural imaginaries)

1. Imagination; fancy. [from 16th c.]
   • 2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin 2003, p. 324:

     By then too Mozart's opera, from Da Ponte's libretto, had made Figaro a stock character in the European imaginary and set the whole Continent whistling Mozartian airs and chuckling at Figaresque humour.
2. (mathematics) An imaginary quantity. [from 18th c.]
3. (sociology) The set of values, institutions, laws, and symbols common to a particular social group and the corresponding society through which people imagine their social whole.

References

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?si?m??/
• Homophones: seaming, seming
• Rhymes: -i?m??

Verb

seeming

1. present participle of seem

Adjective

seeming (comparative more seeming, superlative most seeming)

1. Appearing to the eye or mind (distinguished from, and often opposed to, real or actual).

   Synonyms: apparent, ostensible

   • 1671, Aphra Behn, The Amorous Prince, or, The Curious Husband, London: Thomas Dring, Act II, Scene 5, pp. 32-33,^[1]

     I'le hide my anger in a seeming calm,
     And what I have to do, consult the while,
     And mask my vengeance underneath a smile.

   • 1765, Oliver Goldsmith, Essays, London: W. Griffin, Essay 18, p. 150,^[2]

     Of all the English philosophers, I most reverence Bacon, that great and hardy genius: he it is who, undaunted by the seeming difficulties that oppose, prompts human curiosity to examine every part of nature;

   • 1876, George Eliot, Daniel Deronda, Chapter 27,^[3]

     […] she was overcome like the thirsty one who is drawn toward the seeming water in the desert […]

   • 1955, J. R. R. Tolkien, The Return of the King, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012, Chapter 10,^[4]

     […] though they marched in seeming peace, the hearts of all the army, from the highest to the lowest, were downcast, and with every mile that they went north foreboding of evil grew heavier on them.

Derived terms

• seemingly
• seemingness

Translations

Noun

seeming (countable and uncountable, plural seemings)

1. Outward appearance.
   • 1971, Iris Murdoch, An Accidental Man, New York: Viking, p. 162,^[7]

     I am not what I seemed to her, he thought, and doubtless she is not what she seemed to me, but it is our lot to be irrevocably condemned to seemings and to deserve them too.

2. (obsolete) Apprehension; judgement.
   • 1604, Richard Hooker, Of the Lawes of Ecclesiasticall Politie, London, Preface, p. 39,^[8]

     Nothing more cleare vnto their seeming, then that a new Jerusalem being often spoken of in Scripture, they vndoubtedly were themselues that newe Ierusalem,

   • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 8, lines 736-738,^[9]

     […] in her ears the sound
     Yet rung of his perswasive words, impregn’d
     With Reason, to her seeming, and with Truth;

Translations