What does "image" mean?
Image: This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna. Shak. And God created man in his own image. Gen. i.
Additional senses
- 2.2. Hence: The likeness of anything to which worship is paid; an idol. Chaucer. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, . . . thou shalt not bow down thyself to them. Ex. xx. 4, 5.
- 3.Show; appearance; cast. The face of things a frightful image bears. Dryden.
- 4.A representation of anything to the mind; a picture drawn by the fancy; a conception; an idea. Can we conceive Image of aught delightful, soft, or great Prior.
- 5.(Rhet.) A picture, example, or illustration, often taken from sensible objects, and used to illustrate a subject; usually, an extended metaphor. Brande & C.
- 6.(Opt.) The figure or picture of any object formed at the focus of a lens or mirror, by rays of light from the several points of the object symmetrically refracted or reflected to corresponding points in such focus; this may be received on a screen, a photographic plate, or the retina of the eye, and viewed directly by the eye, or with an eyeglass, as in the telescope and microscope; the likeness of an object formed by reflection; as, to see one's image in a mirror. Electrical image. See under Electrical. -- Image breaker, one who destroys images; an iconoclast. -- Image graver, Image maker, a sculptor. -- Image worship, the worship of images as symbols; iconolatry distinguished from idolatry; the worship of images themselves. -- Image Purkinje (Physics), the image of the retinal blood vessels projected in, not merely on, that membrane. -- Virtual image (Optics), a point or system of points, on one side of a mirror or lens, which, if it existed, would emit the system of rays which actually exists on the other side of the mirror or lens. Clerk Maxwell.
- 7.To represent or form an image of; as, the still lake imaged the shore; the mirror imaged her figure. "Shrines of imaged saints." J. Warton.
- 8.To represent to the mental vision; to form a likeness of by the fancy or recollection; to imagine. Condemn'd whole years in absence to deplore, And image charms he must behold no more. Pope.
Sources
- Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).
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- Published: 2026-07-17T00:00:00-07:00 · Modified: 2026-07-17T00:00:00-07:00