imaginarily

adv

1. (not-comparable)In an imaginary way, in the imagination.

   “But we end with those famous Artists leauing them to their graues, and their works to the admiration of all posterity, and speake of Statuary or Caruing, which thus farre differeth from painting; this doth expresse hir image in the plaine or smooth superficies imaginarily; the other in the hollow and vneuen superficies, really.”

   “1724, Aaron Hill and William Bond, The Plain Dealer No. 40, 7 August, 1724, Volume 1, London: S. Richardson and A. Wilde, 1730, p. 335, The Father (if all our Family guesses right, and much I fear we do) will be inraged at the Loss of an Estate, in which he had imaginarily placed the whole Sum of his Son’s Felicity in this World;”

   “The lethargically mad, sitting with their hands in their laps, imaginarily exhausted, unable to speak above a whisper, with burning but unfocusable eyes, unable to concentrate...”

   “At some point, the past two or three weeks, Paul had begun to imaginarily hear Erin quietly sobbing—whenever she was in a bathroom with the sink on, and sometimes when in bed, beside him […]”

2. (not-comparable, obsolete)By way of an image.

   “The which Sacrament Melchisedech King of Salem first offered vp figuratiuely in type (or token) of the body and bloude of Christe: and the same man first of al expressed imaginarily (or in image) the Mysterie of this so great a Sacrifice, foreshewing the likenesse of our Lorde and Sauiour Iesus Christe the euerlasting Priest.”

   “[…] some desiring to please their tyrannous Princes, put up their statues, and at distance by a phantastical presence flattered them with honours. And in process of time, these were made Gods; and the incommunicable name was given to wood and stones. Not that the Heathens thought that image to be very God, but that they were imaginarily present in them, and so had their Name.”