simulacrum

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A physical image or representation of a deity, person, or thing.

   A simulacrum of a New York studio apartment.

2. 2
   noun

   A thing which has the appearance or form of another thing, but not its true qualities; a thing which simulates another thing; an imitation; a semblance.

   One Life; a little gleam of Time between two Eternities; no second chance to us forevermore! It were well for us to live not as fools and simulacra, but as wise and realities.

Learned borrowing from Latin simulācrum (“image, likeness”), from simul(ā) + -crum (a variant of -culum, from Proto-Indo-European *-tlom, a suffix forming instrument nouns), from similis (“similar (to)”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *sem- (“one; together”).

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