Other forms: idols
An idol is an image worshipped as a god. Bow to an idol, smash the idols, a golden idol.
The prohibition on them is central to Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and iconoclasm — the destruction of images — has broken out repeatedly in all three. In modern use an idol is somebody adored, as in a pop idol. The Greek eidolon means an image.
1nounidolAn image worshipped as a god.
“The villagers bowed down before a golden idol in the temple.”
2nounadoredSomebody who is adored.
“The young footballer was the idol of every boy in the town.”
idol is an image, or a hero.
Greek eidolon means an image or phantom, from eidos, form. Idea comes from the same seeing.
Proto-Indo-European
*weyd-
Middle English
ydole
English, today
idol
Built from
From Middle English ydole. From Middle English ydole, from Old French idole, from Latin idolum, from Ancient Greek εἴδωλον (“image, idol”), from εἶδος (“form”), from Proto-Indo-European wéydos (“seeing, image”), from weyd- (“to see”). a doublet of aidoru and eidolon and idolum and related to idea.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Belief & Ritual