imagery

/ˈɪmɪdʒəri/

/ˈɪmədʒəri/

Other forms: imageries

Picture this: imagery is a noun to describe the way things or ideas seem in your mind or in art or literature.

Imagery comes from image and originally referred to physical things like statues. Now it is more often used of an artist's or writer's depictions ("Shakespeare's imagery shows a wide knowledge of the world") or of the pictures of the world in someone's mind. Think of imagery as being the stockpile of your imagination. If the imagery in your dreams is a little scary, it might be time to stop eating those spicy meatball sandwiches right before bedtime.

Definitions of imagery

1. noun

   the ability to form mental images of things or events
   synonyms: imagination, imaging, mental imagery

   types:

   mind's eye

   the imaging of remembered or invented scenes

   vision

   a vivid mental image

   envisioning, picturing

   visual imagery

   dream, dreaming

   a series of mental images and emotions occurring during sleep

   chimaera, chimera

   a grotesque product of the imagination

   evocation

   imaginative re-creation

   make-believe, pretence, pretense

   imaginative intellectual play

   nightmare

   a terrifying or deeply upsetting dream

   prevision

   a prophetic vision (as in a dream)

   retrovision

   a vision of events in the distant past

   type of:

   representational process

   any basic cognitive process in which some entity comes to stand for or represent something else
2. noun

   the use of vivid, descriptive language in literature, especially language that appeals to the senses
   type of:

   device

   something in an artistic work designed to achieve a particular effect