Eidolon

/aɪˈdəʊlən/ · noun

Meaning

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..

Definitions by Sense

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.
2. A phantom; a ghost or an elusive entity.
3. An unsubstantial image; a spectre; a phantom.

Example Sentences

As a species it is extinct; as an eidolon it retains its corporeality – but only if maintained in a state of equipoise.

It was not hard to forge her image, her "eidolon", in the grey gloom of the little church.

[…]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.

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.

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.

Synonyms for eidolon

Antonyms for eidolon

Related Words

Word Forms

• eidola
• eidolons
• eidôlon
• idolon

Usage Notes

Choose a synonym only when it preserves the intended meaning, tone, and grammar of the full sentence.

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