Dictionary

eidolon en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /aɪˈdoʊlən/ (US)
• /aɪˈdəʊlən/ (UK)
• /aɪˈdəʊlɒn/ (UK)
• /aɪˈdoʊlɑn/ (US)
• (US) audio

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *weyd- Proto-Indo-European *-os Proto-Indo-European *wéydos Proto-Hellenic *wéidos Ancient Greek εἶδος (eîdos) Ancient Greek εἴδωλον (eídōlon)der. English eidolon From Ancient Greek εἴδωλον (eídōlon, “figure, representation”), from εἶδος (eîdos, “sight”), from εἴδω (eídō, “I see”). Doublet of aidoru, idol, and idolum and related to idea.

Meanings

1. 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.
   • As a species it is extinct; as an eidolon it retains its corporeality – but only if maintained in a state of equipoise. 1936, Henry Miller, Black Spring:
   • It was not hard to forge her image, her "eidolon", in the grey gloom of the little church. 1974, Lawrence Durrell, Monsieur, Faber & Faber, published 1992, page 21:
   • […]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. 2006, Thomas Pynchon, “Bilocations”, in Against the Day, New York, N.Y.: Penguin Press, →ISBN, page 620:
   • In all my years of adventuring among the primitives and wild men of the world, I have never set eyes on a man who looked so savage, so elemental, so full of primal rage as the being that now climbed from the coffin; naked, sword in hand, its long black hair flowing behind it, its body covered head to toe in tattooes of eldritch imagery and ancient languages that resembled no script written by man. Sherman, the American general, is said to have told his enemies, begging for mercy, that they may as well appeal against the thunderstorm. What I beheld before me, I thought, was the very eidolon of the storm. 2012 May 31, Smapti, “Lord Blackwood and the Great Tarasque Hunt of '83”, in SCP Foundation, archived from the original on 30 Sep 2024:
2. A phantom; a ghost or an elusive entity.
   • 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. 1837, Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, (please specify the book or page number):
3. An unsubstantial image; a spectre; a phantom.

Forms

Deriveds

eidolic

Translations (14)

el είδωλο (a ghost or elusive entity) · bg призрак (a ghost or elusive entity) · fr éidolon (a ghost or elusive entity) · tr hayalet (a ghost or elusive entity) · bg идеализиран образ (a representation of an ideal form) · bg привидение (a ghost or elusive entity) · ru э́йдолон (a ghost or elusive entity) · el είδωλο (a representation of an ideal form) · pt ídolo (a representation of an ideal form) · es aparición (a ghost or elusive entity) · grc εἴδωλον (a representation of an ideal form) · es fantasma (a ghost or elusive entity) · ru при́зрак (a ghost or elusive entity) · ru привиде́ние (a ghost or elusive entity)