Word.ws English Dictionary

leave to the imagination

leave to the imagination verb: to omit, to leave out, to leave unstated.

Verb

leave to the imagination (third-person singular simple present leaves to the imagination, present participle leaving to the imagination, simple past and past participle left to the imagination)

  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To omit, to leave out, to leave unstated.
    • The new members of the crime organization got the most dangerous jobs. I'll leave the specifics to your imagination.
  2. (idiomatic, transitive) To cover.
    • He stripped down to a pair of see-through briefs that left nothing to the imagination.

Forms of leave to the imagination

third-person singular presentleaves to the imagination
present participleleaving to the imagination
past participleleft to the imagination
pastleft to the imagination

Questions about leave to the imagination

What does leave to the imagination mean?
Leave to the imagination means to omit, to leave out, to leave unstated.
What part of speech is leave to the imagination?
Leave to the imagination is a verb.
What is the past tense of leave to the imagination?
The past tense of leave to the imagination is left to the imagination.

Words near leave to the imagination in the dictionary

  1. leave the door open
  2. leave the nest
  3. leave things alone
  4. leave things be
  5. leave to chance
  6. leave to the imagination
  7. leave well alone
  8. leave well enough alone
  9. leave with the one that brought ya
  10. leave with the one that brung ya
  11. leave with the one that brung you

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: leave to the imagination (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “leave to the imagination.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/leave_to_the_imagination. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.