c1430 (c1395) G. Chaucer Legend Good Women (Cambr. Gg.4.27) (1879) Prol. l. 331 For hate or for Ielous ymagynyng.

c1440 W. Hilton Mixed Life (Thornton) in G. G. Perry Eng. Prose Treat. (1921) 42 In ymagynynge of þe manhede of oure Lorde.

1548 Hall's Vnion: Henry VIII f. xxxij While these thynges were thus in commonynge and immagenyng.

1785 T. Reid Ess. Intellect. Powers i. i Conceiving, imagining and apprehending are commonly used as synonymous.

1814 Ld. Byron To Ianthe in Childe Harold: Cantos I & II (ed. 7) i. 4 Guileless beyond Hope's imagining.

1847 Fine Arts' Jrnl. 14 Nov. 17/2 It is the imagining of a result and the invention or selection of the means for accomplishing that result.

1929 H. Flanagan Shifting Scenes Mod. European Theatre 232 Bergl created for the garden rooms of the empress a landscape covering walls, doors, and mirrors with exotic trees and flowers which had no reality except in his imagining.

1946 W. S. Knickerbocker 20th Cent. Eng. 398 The obsessed imagining of other men may picture mermaids singing to them of love.

2004 A. Ghosh Hungry Tide (2005) ii. 300 She wouldn't listen to me, of course—she knew so little of the world that these things were beyond her imagining.

a1449 J. Lydgate Minor Poems (1934) ii. 778 What may avaylle al your ymagynynges.

a1616 W. Shakespeare Macbeth (1623) i. iii. 137 Present Feares Are lesse then horrible Imaginings . View more context for this quotation

1692 R. South 12 Serm. I. 498 Our own Common Law looks upon a Man's raising Arms against..his Prince, as an Imagining, or Compassing of his Death.

1795 S. J. Pratt Gleanings through Wales II. xxxix. 230 We must allow these poetical imaginings, or take away from the muse, altogether, her most essential priviledge.

1871 F. T. Palgrave Lyrical Poems 72 In hopeless chase of vain imaginings.

1935 J. O'Neill Land under Eng. ii. 23 It was quite clear to both of us that, though the man was in the grip of a terrible obsession, he had grounds for his imaginings that even we could not deny.

1963 F. Barron Creativity & Psychol. Health i. 7 A scientific theory is an imagining of the way things could really be behind their appearances, expressed formally and accompanied by a set of rules.

1991 Conjunctions 17 56 I was wild to make my body's imaginings actual.

2002 G. C. Furman School as Community i. ii. 63 The foregoing is an imagining of the possibilities for community in the postmodern world.

1660 S. Fisher Rusticus ad Academicos ii. 152 Alas poor imagining man.

1725 J. Hutchinson Ess. toward Nat. Hist. of Bible 16 It is not at all strange, that neither false God, Devil, Atheist, nor imagining Men, could ever frame any Story upon this Subject.

1767 N. Sievwright Princ., Polit. & Relig. ii. 277 They who explain the New Testament by tradition..seem to me to pin their faith to the sleeves of imagining men.

1844 A. W. Kinglake Eothen iv. 63 Conceive the strength, and the fanciful beauty, of the speeches with which a whole army of imagining men must have told their weariness.

1963 B. Belitt tr. A. Machado Juan de Mairena 47 Preserve only the imagining man.

1989 Rev. Politics 51 117 Imagination..offers imagining man ‘escapes’ of a sort from reality.

1994 B. L. Estrin Laura 10 Once the originating poet imagines the imagining woman, she (in turn) proceeds to probe in directions not yet revealed by..the original representation.