imagines

1. 1
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of imagine.

   The child imagines whole worlds inside an empty cardboard box.

   Whenever the market dips, she imagines the worst possible outcome.

   Note

   The ordinary -s form appears after he, she, it or a singular noun. Every other present-tense subject takes plain imagine. It carries the verb's whole range, from picturing (the child imagines whole worlds) to supposing (she imagines that prices will fall). An older use meaning to contrive or scheme is obsolete, so in modern prose imagines never means plots.

2. 2
   USi-MAY-guh-niz/ɪˈmeɪɡəˌniz/UKUKi-MAY-ji-neez/ɪˈmeɪd͡ʒɪniːz/US

   noun

   Plural of imago.

   Entomologists counted the imagines hatching from the collected pupae.

   By midsummer the colony's imagines outnumbered the remaining larvae.

   Note

   This is a Latin plural carried into English whole, from imāginēs. It serves both meanings of imago: the adult insect after metamorphosis, and the idealized image of a loved one formed in childhood. The anglicized imagos also appears in entomological writing. On the page it looks exactly like the verb form of imagine, but this one is a borrowed Latin plural and that one is imagine with an English -s.

3. 3
   nounslang

   Plural of imagine.

   Her blog is full of imagines in which the reader goes on a date with a pop star.

   The account posts short imagines about the show's cast every week.

   Note

   The noun behind this plural is fan-fiction slang. An imagine is a short piece or prompt that places the reader in a scene with a character or celebrity, and imagines are a collection of them. It belongs to fandom writing and sits oddly in formal prose. Like the verb form, it is imagine with an English -s, not the Latin plural of imago.

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