Imaginary vs Artificial - What's the difference?
imaginary | artificial |
existing only in the imagination
* Addison
(mathematics) of a number, having no real part; that part of a complex number which is a multiple of the square root of -1.
Imagination; fancy.
* 2002 , , The Great Nation , Penguin 2003, p. 324:
(mathematics) An imaginary quantity.
Man-made; of artifice.
* {{quote-magazine, title=A better waterworks, date=2013-06-01, volume=407, issue=8838
, page=5 (Technology Quarterly), magazine=(The Economist)
False, misleading.
Unnatural.
As adjectives the difference between imaginary and artificial
is that imaginary is existing only in the imagination while artificial is man-made; of artifice.As a noun imaginary
is imagination; fancy.imaginary
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- Wilt thou add to all the griefs I suffer / Imaginary ills and fancied tortures?
Derived terms
* imaginarily * imaginarinessNoun
(imaginaries)- By then too Mozart's opera, from Da Ponte's libretto, had made Figaro a stock character in the European imaginary and set the whole Continent whistling Mozartian airs and chuckling at Figaresque humour.
External links
* (Imaginary number)artificial
English
Adjective
(en adjective)citation, passage=An artificial kidney these days still means a refrigerator-sized dialysis machine. Such devices mimic the way real kidneys cleanse blood and eject impurities and surplus water as urine. But they are nothing like as efficient, and can cause bleeding, clotting and infection—not to mention inconvenience for patients, who typically need to be hooked up to one three times a week for hours at a time.}}
