eidolon
Pronunciation
  • (British) IPA: /aɪˈdəʊlən/
  • (America) IPA: /aɪˈdoʊlɑn/
Noun

eidolon (plural eidola)

  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.
    • 1974, Lawrence Durrell, Monsieur, Faber & Faber 1992, p. 21:
      It was not hard to forge her image, her "eidolon", in the grey gloom of the little church.
    • 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.
  2. A phantom, a ghost or elusive entity.
    • 1837 Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History
      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.
Translations


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