IMAGO (imagines, imagoes)

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

Irregular inflected forms: imagines    , imagoes   

 Dictionary entry overview: What does imago mean? 

• IMAGO (noun)
  The noun IMAGO has 2 senses:

1. (psychoanalysis) an idealized image of someone (usually a parent) formed in childhood

2. an adult insect produced after metamorphosis

  Familiarity information: IMAGO used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• IMAGO (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

(psychoanalysis) an idealized image of someone (usually a parent) formed in childhood

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Hypernyms ("imago" is a kind of...):

epitome; image; paradigm; prototype (a standard or typical example)

Domain category:

analysis; depth psychology; psychoanalysis (a set of techniques for exploring underlying motives and a method of treating various mental disorders; based on the theories of Sigmund Freud)

Sense 2

Meaning:

An adult insect produced after metamorphosis

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Hypernyms ("imago" is a kind of...):

insect (small air-breathing arthropod)

 Context examples 

A man always imagines a woman to be ready for any body who asks her.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

But I have reasons to suppose that this opinion would be very much more frank and valuable if he imagines that we are alone.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He can give no explanation of the young man’s last words, ‘The professor—it was she,’ but imagines that they were the outcome of delirium.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

You think only of yourself, and because you do not feel for Mr. Crawford exactly what a young heated fancy imagines to be necessary for happiness, you resolve to refuse him at once, without wishing even for a little time to consider of it, a little more time for cool consideration, and for really examining your own inclinations; and are, in a wild fit of folly, throwing away from you such an opportunity of being settled in life, eligibly, honourably, nobly settled, as will, probably, never occur to you again.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

After all, important fresh evidence is a two-edged thing, and may possibly cut in a very different direction to that which Lestrade imagines.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)