Ancient Greek

Noun

εἴδωλον • ‎(eídōlon) n ‎(genitive εἰδώλου); second declension

1. phantom
   • circa 800 BC, Homer, The Odyssey, IV, 796

     ἔνθ᾽ αὖτ᾽ ἄλλ᾽ ἐνόησε θεά, γλαυκῶπις Ἀθήνη:
     εἴδωλον ποίησε, δέμας δ᾽ ἤικτο γυναικί,
     Ἰφθίμῃ, κούρῃ μεγαλήτορος Ἰκαρίοιο,
     τὴν Εὔμηλος ὄπυιε Φερῇς ἔνι οἰκία ναίων.
     πέμπε δέ μιν πρὸς δώματ᾽ Ὀδυσσῆος θείοιο,
     ἧος Πηνελόπειαν ὀδυρομένην γοόωσαν
     παύσειε κλαυθμοῖο γόοιό τε δακρυόεντος.

     Then the goddess, bright-eyed Athene, had an idea. She created a phantom, in the likeness of Penelope’s sister, Iphthime, that other daughter of great-hearted Icarius. Eumelus had married her, and she was living at Pherae. Athene sent the phantom to noble Odysseus’ palace, to the weeping, grieving Penelope, to tell her to stop her crying, her tear-filled lament.

2. shape, figure, image
3. image of the mind: idea, fancy
4. representation, statue, idol

Inflection

Descendants

• English: eidolon, idol
• Greek είδωλο ‎(eídolo)
• Latin: īdōlum
• Russian: идол ‎(ídol)

References

• εἴδωλον in Liddell & Scott (1940) A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• εἴδωλον in Liddell & Scott (1889) An Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon, New York: Harper & Brothers
• εἴδωλον in Autenrieth, Georg (1891) A Homeric Dictionary for Schools and Colleges, New York: Harper and Brothers
• «εἴδωλον» in Bailly, Anatole (1935) Le Grand Bailly: Dictionnaire grec-français, Paris: Hachette
• Bauer, Walter et al. (2001) A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, Third edition, Chicago: University of Chicago Press
• «εἴδωλον» in Cunliffe, Richard J. (1924) A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect: Expanded Edition, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, published 1963
• «εἴδωλον» in the Diccionario Griego–Español en línea (© 2006–2016)
• εἴδωλον in Slater, William J. (1969) Lexicon to Pindar, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter
• “G1497”, in Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance to the Bible, 1979
• Woodhouse, S. C. (1910) English-Greek Dictionary: A Vocabulary of the Attic Language, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Limited.
  • apparition idem, page 34.
  • appearance idem, page 35.
  • fancy idem, page 306.
  • form idem, page 338.
  • ghost idem, page 358.
  • idea idem, page 413.
  • image idem, page 416.
  • imagination idem, page 416.
  • impression idem, page 423.
  • notion idem, page 561.
  • phantom idem, page 610.
  • shade idem, page 760.
  • shadow idem, page 760.
  • skeleton idem, page 780.
  • spectre idem, page 800.
  • spirit idem, page 802.
  • vision idem, page 954.