figment

What it means

1. A fabrication, fantasy, invention; something fictitious.

   a figment of one's imagination

   3 more examples

   He had not seen sarcomeres: these segments were a figment of his imagination.

   1989 (Sep 30), R. McNeill Alexander, "Biomechanics in the days before Newton", New Scientist volume 123, No. 1684, page 59

   Perhaps, dear reader, you are only a figment in the dream of some god, as Sherlock Holmes was a figment in the mind of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

   1999, Martin Gardner, The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener, page 12

   Jung's implication here is clearly that one should try to forget that this is only a figment or fantasy, merely make-believe—or perhaps that one should forget the “only,” the “merely”—and indeed take the fantasy seriously as a reality.

   2004, Daniel C. Noel, In a Wayward Mood: Selected Writings 1969-2002, page 256

2. obsoleteAn item which has been crafted.

In a sentence

a figment of one's imagination

Where it comes from

1. Late Latinfigmentum“anything made, a fiction”
2. Englishfigment

From Late Latin figmentum (“anything made, a fiction”), from fingō (“make, form, feign”); see fiction, feign, feint.