eidolon

See also: eidôlon

English

WOTD – 22 February 2007

Alternative forms

• eidôlon
• idolon

Etymology

From Ancient Greek εいぷしろんἴδωλον (eídōlon, “figure, representation”), from εいぷしろんἶδος (eîdos, “sight”), from εいぷしろんἴδでるたωおめが (eídō, “I see”). Doublet of aidoru, idol, and idolum and related to idea.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /aɪˈdəʊlən/, /aɪˈdəʊlɒn/
• (US) IPA^(key): /aɪˈdoʊlən/, /aɪˈdoʊlɑn/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

eidolon (plural eidola or eidolons)

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.
   • 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.

   • 2012 May 31, Smapti, “Lord Blackwood and the Great Tarasque Hunt of '83”, in SCP Foundation‎^[1], archived from the original on 30 September 2024:

     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.

2. A phantom; a ghost or an 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.

3. An unsubstantial image; a spectre; a phantom.

Translations

a representation of an ideal form

• Bulgarian: идеализиран образ m (idealiziran obraz)
• Greek: είδωλο (el) n (eídolo)

  Ancient Greek: εいぷしろんἴδωλον n (eídōlon)

• Portuguese: ídolo (pt) m

a ghost or elusive entity

• Bulgarian: призрак (bg) m (prizrak), привидение (bg) n (prividenie)
• Greek: είδωλο (el) n (eídolo)
• Russian: при́зрак (ru) (prízrak), привиде́ние (ru) (prividénije)
• Spanish: fantasma (es) m, aparición (es) f
• Turkish: hayalet (tr)