Im"age (?), n. [F., fr. L. imago, imaginis, from the root of imitari to imitate. See Imitate, and cf. Imagine.]

1.

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 Vienna. Shak.

And God created man in his own image. Gen. i. 27.

2.

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.

3.

Show; appearance; cast.

The face of things a frightful image bears. Dryden.

4.

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.

5. Rhet.

A picture, example, or illustration, often taken from sensible objects, and used to illustrate a subject; usually, an extended metaphor.

Brande & C.

6. 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.

 

© Webster 1913.


Im"age (?), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Imaged (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Imaging (?).]

1.

To represent or form an image of; as, the still lake imaged the shore; the mirror imaged her figure.

"Shrines of imaged saints."

J. Warton.

2.

To represent to the mental vision; to form a likeness of by the fancy or recollection; to imagine.

Condemn'd whole years in absence to deplore, And image charms he must behold no more. Pope.

 

© Webster 1913.