Idol

How to spell idol

4 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce idol

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does idol mean?

1. nounA person who is greatly admired, loved, or revered, especially a celebrity or hero.
2. nounA statue or image worshipped as a god or sacred object.

Idol in a sentence

• The young guitarist met her musical idol backstage after the concert.

• The museum displayed a carved stone idol from an ancient temple.

• The striker became a national idol after scoring the winning goal.

• The explorers found a golden idol hidden inside the ruined shrine.

Where does idol come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word comes from the Greek eidolon, which meant an image, a likeness, or even a phantom or ghostly apparition. That noun was built on eidos, meaning 'form' or 'shape', which itself traces back to the verb idein, 'to see', so at its heart an idol is simply 'a thing seen' or 'a visible form'. Greek-speaking Jews and early Christians used eidolon specifically for the images of false gods, and that religious sense passed into Latin as idolum and then into Old French as idole, reaching English in the 1200s. The modern meaning of a wildly admired person, such as a pop idol or sporting hero, grew naturally from the idea of something worshipped. A useful spelling note: idol sounds exactly like 'idle' (doing nothing) and 'idyll' (a charming scene), but only idol keeps the -ol ending that echoes its Greek and Latin roots.

How the word is built

• idol- (from Greek eidolon: image, likeness)
• (noun)

Words that sound like idol

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• idle: Not active, not in use, or doing no work.