Definition
In English law, to imagine means to conceive or mentally form the intention to bring about a prohibited act — most critically, the death, deposition, or serious harm of the sovereign. The term appears almost exclusively in the law of treason, where imagining the king's death constituted the foundational mental act of the offense. Because the law could not punish a thought alone, the imagining had to be evidenced by an overt act before criminal liability attached. In this legal context, "imagine" carries the sense of purposeful scheming or devising, not merely idle mental wandering.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A short fanfic or prompt placing a reader in a novel scenario with a character or celebrity — a usage entirely confined to internet fan culture.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To form a mental image or notion; to conceive; also, to contrive in purpose, to scheme, to devise, to compass — as in "imagining mischief against a man."
The legal meaning tracks the Webster's 1913 secondary sense precisely: purposeful scheming or contriving, not passive mental imagery. The modern common meaning has drifted so far from this active, volitional sense that a researcher encountering "imagine" in a treason statute or indictment should treat it as a term of art, not a description of fantasy or speculation.
Common Confusion
"Imagine" and "compass" are treated as synonyms in English treason law — both denoting the willful mental purpose to bring about a prohibited outcome. Researchers sometimes read these terms as describing distinct mental states (imagining as mere contemplation, compassing as active planning), but the historical sources are unanimous that they are interchangeable. Bouvier specifically notes that "compassing and imagining" are synonymous in this context. The real distinction is not between the two terms but between the internal mental act (whichever word names it) and the overt act required to prove it.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in English constitutional history, early American treason law, or colonial-era criminal records will encounter "imagine" as a term of art in statutory and indictment language. Several points warrant attention:
First, the term is inherited directly from the Statute of Treasons (25 Edw. III, stat. 5, c. 2, 1351), which makes "imagining or compassing" the death of the king the paradigmatic treasonable act. Any English-derived legal text using this language is traceable to that statute, and understanding it requires understanding the statute's framework.
Second, early American treason provisions — both in state constitutions and in the federal treason clause — were drafted partly in reaction to the perceived vagueness of this language. Bouvier quotes Barrington's criticism that the words "compass and imagine" are "too vague for a statute whose penalty affects the life of a subject." Researchers tracing the narrowing of American treason doctrine should treat this criticism as a live thread.
Third, because "imagine" in this context requires an overt act to complete the offense, the term sits at the intersection of thought crime and conduct. Corpus materials dealing with the overt act requirement in treason cases will often refer back to the imagining language as the mental element being proved.
Fourth, Anderson's Dictionary of Law adds nothing beyond a cross-reference to TREASON, which itself signals that "imagine" as a standalone legal term was understood primarily as a tributary concept — meaningful only within the law of treason, not as an independent doctrine.
Historical Dictionary Support
All four source dictionaries agree on the essential point: imagining the king's death is the mental element of English treason, and it requires an overt act to be legally cognizable. Black's (both editions) and Bouvier track each other closely and cite Blackstone's Commentaries (4 Bl. Comm. 78) as authority. Bouvier adds the Barrington critique of vagueness, which the other dictionaries omit — a notable divergence, since that critique has historical importance for understanding why American constitutional drafters narrowed treason's definition.
Anderson's entry is minimal, functioning as a redirect rather than a definition. This is not unusual for Anderson, which often treats subsidiary terms by cross-reference, but researchers relying on Anderson alone would miss the substantive analysis available in Bouvier and Black's.
None of the historical dictionaries address the reception of this language in American law or the degree to which "imagine" survived into post-Revolutionary treason statutes. That gap is significant: the federal Treason Clause (Art. III, § 3) dropped the imagining/compassing formulation entirely, confining treason to levying war or adhering to enemies. Researchers should not assume that the English law of imagining translated intact into American jurisdictions.
Jurisdictional Note
"Imagine" as a legal term of art is substantially a feature of English law and jurisdictions that directly inherited English treason statutes. In the United States, the federal constitutional definition of treason does not use the term, and the vagueness concerns Bouvier identifies largely drove its exclusion. Researchers working in early colonial or state treason records may encounter the language, but its operative force in modern American law is negligible.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia — Treason; Compassing; Overt Act