The Collaborative International Dictionary
Image \Im"age\ ([i^]m"[asl]j; 48), n. [F., fr. L. imago, imaginis, from the root of imitari to imitate. See Imitate, and cf. Imagine.]
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An imitation, representation, or similitude of any person, thing, or act, sculptured, drawn, painted, or otherwise made perceptible to the sight; a visible presentation; a copy; a likeness; an effigy; a picture; a semblance.
Even like a stony image, cold and numb.
--Shak.Whose is this image and superscription?
--Matt. xxii. 20.This play is the image of a murder done in Vienn
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--Shak.And God created man in his own image.
--Gen. i. 27.
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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. -
Show; appearance; cast.
The face of things a frightful image bears.
--Dryden. -
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. (Rhet.) A picture, example, or illustration, often taken from sensible objects, and used to illustrate a subject; usually, an extended metaphor.
--Brande & C.-
(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.