image
Pronunciation
- IPA: /ˈɪm.ɪdʒ/[1]
Etymology
It is inherited from Middle English image, ymage,[2][3] borrowed from Old French image (“image, likeness; figure, portrait; reflection; statue”), earlier imagene,[4][3] from Latin imāgō (“copy, likeness, statue, picture; phantom; idea, appearance”), genitive imāginis,[4][2] related to imitārī (“to copy”), the source of imitate.[2][5][6] Etymonline takes it to Proto-Indo-European *aim- (“to copy”).[4] The verb is partly from Old French imagier and partly from the noun.[4][7]
Earliest recorded meaning
A statue or effigy, an artificial likeness of a person or thing: probably about 1200,[2][4] before 1225 in the OED.[8]
Semantic evolution
Senses already present in Latin came into English gradually.[2] A reflection in a mirror is from the early 14th century,[4][8] and a mental picture or idea from about 1380, in Chaucer's translation of Boethius.[2][4] In Wycliffe's Bible of 1382 God made man “to þe ymage of god”.[4] A person who closely resembles another, as in the very image of his father, is a related sense.[9][10] The sense “the impression a person or institution presents to the public” is found in isolated cases from 1908, in Chesterton,[2][4] but became common only in the 1950s in the jargon of advertising and public relations, in phrases such as corporate image.[2][4] The verb, “to form a mental picture of”, is from the late 14th century,[4] and in modern technology “to make a visual representation of, as by scanning” is a new sense.[9][10]
Timeline
- c. 1200 – a statue, a likeness.[2][4]
- early 14th century – a reflection.[4][8]
- c. 1380 – a mental picture.[2]
- late 14th century – verb, to imagine.[4]
- 1908 – a public image.[2][4]
- c. 1958 – in public relations.[4]
Modern meaning
Noun
- A representation of a person or thing in a picture, photograph or sculpture.
- A reproduction of an object formed by a lens or mirror, or on a screen.
- A mental picture; an idea.
- The general impression that a person, organization or product presents to the public.
- A person who closely resembles another.
- A vivid description or figure of speech.
Verb
- To make a likeness of; to produce an image of, as by scanning.
- To picture in the mind; to imagine.
- To mirror or reflect.
Word family
- imageless
- imager
- imageable
- self-image
- imagery
- afterimage
- imagemaker
- imagesetter
Related words
- imaginary
- imaginable
- imagination
- imaginative
- imagine
- imitate
- emulate
Usage notes
In west Somerset dialect images were the plaster figures carried about for sale.[11]
References
- ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
- ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
- ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
- ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
- ^ a b c Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
- ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
- ^ a b Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
- ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)