eidolon \ahy-DOH-luhn\,
noun:
1. A phantom; apparition.
2. An ideal.
"An eidolon, a manifestation, if you will, sent up to us from the uttermost deeps to bring about the end of the world."
-- Neil Gaiman, "Looking for the Girl"
It was the ghoulish shade of decay, antiquity, and desolation; the putrid, dripping eidolon of unwholesome revelation, the awful baring of that which the merciful earth should always hide.
-- H.P. Lovecraft, "The Outsider"
Eidolon comes from the more common word idol, which originally referred to pagan religious idols. It was first used in the 1820s.
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