imagery

UK/ˈɪmɪd͡ʒɹi/US/ˈɪmɪd͡ʒɹi/

nounC1Common in everyday speech and writing · #7,023 of 15,258leans written

Imagery is pictures, or the word-pictures a writer uses. Satellite imagery, vivid imagery, religious imagery.

In literature it means the sensory pictures a text builds, and it covers smell and touch as much as sight, which surprises people. In technical use it simply means pictures: satellite imagery, medical imagery. It is a mass noun with no plural.

Definitions of imagery

1nounimageryPictures, or the word-pictures a writer uses.C1
“The poem is full of vivid imagery of the sea and storms.”

imagery is pictures.

Where it comes from

Middle French imagerie comes from image, from Latin imago, a likeness.

Middle French
imagerie
Middle English
ymagerie
English, today
imagery

From Middle English ymagerie, from Middle French imagerie; equivalent to image + -ry.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

imagery in the wild

Imagery intelligence (IMINT), pronounced as either as Im-Int or I-Mint, is an intelligence gathering discipline wherein imagery is analyzed (or "exploited") to identify information of intelligence value.
Imagery intelligence
Imagery used for defense intelligence purposes is generally collected via satellite imagery or aerial photography.
Imagery intelligence
Aerial photography (or airborne imagery) is the taking of photographs from an aircraft or other airborne platforms.
Aerial photography
Some of the phrases often used to describe earworms include "musical imagery repetition" and "involuntary musical imagery".
Earworm
Mental imagery can sometimes produce the same effects as would be produced by the behavior or experience imagined.
Mental image

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

image

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