eidolon
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See also: eidôlon
English[edit]
Alternative forms[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Ancient Greek εἴδωλον (eídōlon, “figure, representation”), from εἶδος (eîdos, “sight”), from εἴδω (eídō, “I see”). Doublet of idol, idolum, and idea.
Pronunciation[edit]
Noun[edit]
eidolon (plural eidola or eidolons)
- An image or representation of an idea; a representation of an ideal form; an apparition of some actual or imaginary entity, or of some aspect of reality.
- 1936, Henry Miller, Black Spring:
- As a species it is extinct; as an eidolon it retains its corporeality – but only if maintained in a state of equipoise.
- 1974, Lawrence Durrell, Monsieur, Faber & Faber, published 1992, page 21:
- It was not hard to forge her image, her "eidolon", in the grey gloom of the little church.
- 2006, Thomas Pynchon, “Bilocations”, in Against the Day, New York, N.Y.: Penguin Press, →ISBN, page 620:
- […] Kit was sitting up staring into the dark at this eidolon, inelegantly turned out contrary to a whole raft of public-decency statutes, which had come monitory and breathing in to violate Kit's insomnia.
- A phantom, a ghost or elusive entity.
- 1837, Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, (please specify the book or page number):
- Was Philippe d'Orleans seen, this day, 'in the Bois de Boulogne, in grey surtout;' waiting under the wet sere foliage, what the day might bring forth? Alas, yes, the Eidolon of him was,—in Weber's and other such brains.
- An unsubstantial image, spectre, phantom.
Translations[edit]
a representation of an ideal form