figment
noun /ˈfɪɡmənt/
/ˈfɪɡmənt/
- something that somebody has imagined and that does not really exist
- Are you telling me that these symptoms are just a figment of my imagination?
- Maybe all happiness is a figment too.
Word Originlate Middle English (denoting an invented statement or story): from Latin figmentum, related to fingere ‘form, contrive’. Compare with feign and fiction. The current sense dates from the early 17th cent.