Until recently, the answer has always been John Lennon. Yoko Ono, John Lennon's wife, revealed for the first time on television about how she, in fact, helped write it. Imagine was inspired, according to Ono, by some of her writings that John Lennon was reading at the time. She said, "It made me imagine what life would be like if we were all the same way thinking." Lennon agreed and later told journalist Neil Strauss: "I wrote it one night after we broke up. I wanted to write something that would help us both move on." Even though this is now known to be false, many people believe that John Lennon invented the word "imagine" when he wrote his famous song. He even included a credit for the idea to its original writer, Lewis E. Simeone. But what everyone should know is that Lewis E. Simeone used the word "imagine" long before Lennon did. The first use of the word "imagine" in print was in an article by Simeone who lived from 1894-1976. He wrote: "Imagination is the only tool that can create anything new out of nothingness." So yes, John Lennon did indeed inspire the word "imagine", but he didn't come up with it first. It had already been coined by another writer years before Lennon wrote about it.