English → Latin
“imagine” in Latin
concipiōto receive or catch, grasp; to derive (from); to contain or holdcomplectorto embrace or hug; to encircle, surround, encompass; to comprehend, understandopīnorto suppose, imagine, deem, think, judge, opineputōto clean, cleanse; to trim, prune, lop; to arrange, settlesomniōto dream; to daydream, think idly; to talk idlyarbitrorto judge, arbitrate; to witness, observe; to believe, thinkreorto reckon, calculate; to think, consider, deem, judge, believe, suppose, suspect, imagineexcōgitōto contrive, devise or invent (by thinking); to think up or create out of nothingfingōto shape, fashion, form, knead (dough); to touch, touch gently, stroke, stroke gently, handle; to adorn, dress, arrangecomminīscorto devise, contrive, invent
The English word imagine itself goes back to Latin imāgō, through imāginor.
Riddle & Arnold A Copious and Critical English–Latin Lexicon, 1864
imagine
Form a representation in the mind, animo cogitare, concipere, complecti; also, cogitare only: animo fingere, effingere: cogitatione fingere or depingere (to form an image of anything in the mind): proponere sibi ante oculos animumque (to place clearly before one’s mind and eyes).
Conjecture, conjectura informare; also, conjicere only (to conjecture): imaginari belongs to Silver Age.
To entertain an unfounded notion, opinari: in opinione esse (to be of opinion): putare (to think; without going deeply into the question): induisse sibi falsam alicujus rei persuasionem (Quint., 1, 1, 8): somniare (to dream): sibi persuadere (penuade one’s self). No one has imagined that, etc., nemo in opinionem venit, fore ut, etc.: no one imagined that, etc., nemini in opinionem veniebat, with accusative and infinitive (e.g., Antonium rerum potiturum, Nep.). I imagine, opinio mea est or fert; videor mini, with nominative and infinitive (e.g., a principio amens fuisse), or with infinitive. I just now imagined that I heard the soldier’s voice, audire vocem visa sum modo militis (Terentianus).
“I imagine,” inserted parenthetically; opinor: ut opinor: credo (credo, like ὡς ἔοικεν, implies irony, the proposition it is applied to being absurd or self-evident; puto or ut puto, inserted so that the clause is not made dependent, is classical but rare; Vid: Cic., 12, 49, 1; caelius, Cic., Fam., 8, 3, 3; Vatin., Cic., Fam., 5, 1, 9: Krebs). To cause anybody to imagine, adducere aliquem in opinionem; opinione aliquem imbuere; opinionem alicui inserere.
Think, putare: arbitrari: reri. [Vid: THINK.]
Contrive (devices, etc.), excogitare: fingere: comminisci: machinari: coquere: concoquere. To imagine deceit, dolos nectere, procudere (comedy).
Quick answer
- What is the Latin word for imagine?
- The usual Latin words for “imagine” are concipiō, complector, opīnor; also putō, somniō, arbitror. The right choice depends on the sense; see the distinctions below.
Entry from J. E. Riddle & T. K. Arnold, A Copious and Critical English–Latin Lexicon (rev. C. Anthon, New York: Harper, 1864), digitised by Fergus J. P. Walsh, CC BY-SA 4.0; Latin markup adapted by latindictionary.co.