From Ancient Greek εἴδωλον, from εἶδος ("sight"), from εἴδω ("I see").

• (British) IPA: /aɪˈdəʊlən/, /aɪˈdəʊlɒn/
• (America) IPA: /aɪˈdoʊlən/, /aɪˈdoʊlɑn/

eidolon (plural eidolons or 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.
   • 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.

2. A phantom, a ghost or elusive entity.
   • 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):

     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, spectre, phantom.

• Portuguese: ídolo

• Russian: при́зрак
• Spanish: fantasma, aparición