imaginable

UK/ɪˈmadʒɪnəbəl/US/ɪˈmæd͡ʒɪnəbəl/

adjectiveB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #8,520 of 15,258neutral

Imaginable means able to be pictured in the mind. If you can conceive of it, it is imaginable.

The word rarely stands alone, and it usually props up a superlative: every colour imaginable, the worst outcome imaginable, in every way imaginable. Placed after the noun like that, it stretches the claim as far as it will go. The negative, unimaginable, is commoner still and is used for horror and scale alike. Do not confuse it with imaginary, which means not real at all, and is a completely different word.

Definitions of imaginable

1adjectiveimaginableAble to be pictured or conceived of.B2+
“They stocked every kind of nail imaginable.”

Where it comes from

Latin
imāginābilis
Middle English
ymaginable
English, today
imaginable

From Middle English ymaginable, from Latin imāginābilis; equivalent to imagine + -able.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove, Word Building

First appears in chapter 7 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

imaginable in the wild

Motor Cycle magazine described the sands as "the finest natural speedway imaginable".
Pendine Sands
In her note on the title which begins the book, Kael asserts that these words are "perhaps the briefest statement imaginable of the basic appeal of movies.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (book)
The Razorbacks were known as the "passing-est team in the nation" by throwing a then un-imaginable 29 times per game.
1936 Arkansas Razorbacks football team

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

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