Image

How to spell image

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce image

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does image mean?

1. nounA visual representation of someone or something, such as a picture, photograph, or reflection.
2. verbTo make a visual or scanned representation of something, especially in medicine or technology.

Image in a sentence

• noun

  The printer produced a sharp image of the document.

• verb

  Doctors use the scanner to image the patient's spine in detail.

• noun

  She saw her own image reflected in the shop window.

• verb

  The software can image an entire hard drive in minutes.

Where does image come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin imago, which meant a likeness, a copy, or a statue, and which was related to imitari, the verb meaning 'to imitate' or 'to copy'. In Roman households an imago was specifically the wax portrait mask of an ancestor, kept and displayed as a family record, so the earliest sense carried the idea of a faithful resemblance of a real person. English took the word in the 1200s through Old French image, at first to describe a sculpted or painted representation, often a religious figure. From there the meaning broadened steadily to cover any visual likeness, then a mental picture in the mind, and finally the modern sense of a public reputation or impression. The spelling preserves the Latin imag- stem, which is also why related forms such as 'imagine' and 'imitate' share the same opening letters.

How the word is built

• imag- (from Latin imago: likeness, copy)
• -e