Eidolon
WiktionaryText
Etymology
From "figure, representation" < (eidos) "sight" < (eidō) "I see" .
Noun
- 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.
- 2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage 2007, p.697:
- 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.
- 1936, Henry Miller, Black Spring:
- A phantom, a ghost or elusive entity.