The ancient Greek word eidos designates the (superficial and perceptible) appearance of an object. Plato wangled it, however, to denote the abstract and universal intrinsic essence and qualities of an object, elsewhere described as "the permanent reality that makes a thing what it is, in contrast to the particulars that are finite and subject to change." This redefinition is the origin of our modern word "idea," but in contemporary translation is usually equated with the english word form, a far cry from its original definition which seems to very easily synch with its opposing-in-translation concept image.