Skip to main content
PlainSpell

eidolon

/aɪˈdoʊlən/noun

eidolon is a noun meaning “An image or representation of an idea; a representation of an ideal form; an apparition of some actual or imaginary entity, or of some aspect of…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled E-I-D-O-L-O-N, and it appears about once in every 7 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of eidolon is eidola or eidolons.

What does eidolon mean?

noun

  1. 1

    An image or representation of an idea; a representation of an ideal form; an apparition of some actual or imaginary entity, or of some aspect of reality.

  2. 2

    A phantom; a ghost or an elusive entity.

  3. 3

    An unsubstantial image; a spectre; a phantom.

noun

as eidôlon
  1. 1

    Alternative spelling of eidolon.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce eidolon?

  • UK /aɪˈdəʊlən/
  • UK /aɪˈdəʊlɒn/
  • US /aɪˈdoʊlən/

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-eidolon.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of eidolon

  • eidola plural
  • eidolons plural
  • eidôlon
  • idolon
  • eidôla plural
  • eidôlons plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is eidolon?

Eidolon appears about once in every 7 million words in written English, the 77,666th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Eidolon in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Portugueseídolo (a representation of an ideal form)
Frenchéidolon (a ghost or elusive entity)
Spanishfantasma, aparición (a ghost or elusive entity)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does eidolon come from?

From Ancient Greek εἴδωλον (eídōlon, “figure, representation”), from εἶδος (eîdos, “sight”), from εἴδω (eídō, “I see”). Doublet of aidoru, idol, and idolum and related to idea.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).