Image, n.
Etymology: [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.
4 more senses
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.
1 other Webster entry under this spelling
Image, 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.
Shades of meaning
Fernald has no entry of its own for image; he lists it under emblem, fancy, idea, model.
Where he writes about it:
An image is a visible representation, especially in sculpture, having or supposed to have a close resemblance to that which it represents. — from emblem
An intellectual fancy is a mental image or picture founded upon slight or whimsical association or resemblance; a conceit has less of the picturesque and more of the theoretic than a fancy; a conceit is somewhat aside from the common laws of reasoning, as a fancy is lighter and more airy than the common mode of thought. — from fancy
Idea is in Greek a form or an image. — from idea
The word signified in early philosophical use the archetype or primal image which the Platonic philosophy supposed to be the model or pattern that existing objects imperfectly embody. — from idea