simulacrum — English Dictionary

Noun

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

   Examples

   a simulacrum of a New York studio apartment

   More examples (2)

   [H]e crossed the haunted Almo, renowned of yore for its healing virtues, and whose stream the far-famed simulacrum, the image of Cybele,) which fell from heaven, was wont to be laved with every coming spring; […]

   Is it not strange to reflect, […] that nightly we lay down our gold, to fashion forth simulacra of peasants, in gay ribands and white bodices, singing sweet songs, and bowing gracefully to the picturesque crosses: and all the while the veritable peasants are kneeling, songlessly, to veritable crosses, in another temper than the kind and fair audiences deem of, and assuredly with another kind of answer than is got out of the opera catastrophe; […] If all the gold that has gone to paint the simulacra of the cottages, and to put new songs in the mouths of the simulacra of the peasants, had gone to brighten the existent cottages, and to put new songs in the mouths of the existent peasants, it might in the end, perhaps, have turned out better so, not only for the peasant, but for even the audience.

2. 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.

   Synonyms

   simulantsimulation

   Examples

   More examples (2)

   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.

   He is become a mere enchanted simulacrum of a Duke; bewitched under worse than Thessalian spells; without faculty of willing, except as she wills; his People and he the plaything of this Circe or Hecate, that has got hold of him.

   [Y]ou find you have nothing—nothing but a coat and wig and a mask smiling below it—nothing but a great simulacrum.

   Certainly a vehicle that seemed to have no inside at all—that appeared to be the mere simulacrum of a vehicle—could not very well contain the two.

   More examples (3)

   Inside the warehouse, he builds a replica of his world line by line, actor by actor, until fiction and nonfiction blur. Like the full-scale map in [Jose Luis] Borges's short story "On Exactitude in Science," the representation takes on the dimensions of reality to the point of replacing it. The French theorist Jean Baudrillard uses Borges's story as a metaphor for his notion of the simulacrum, which probably explains why Caden, who has trouble naming things, considers titling his production "Simulacrum."

   The future just wants more consumers. The future is more newly arrived college grads and tourists in some fruitless search for authenticity. The future is more overpriced Pabsts at dive-bar simulacrums.

   It's a sad commentary on our real, full-scale communities that they are so anti-urban by comparison, and so unsafe for the old and frail. […] We shouldn't have to dodge traffic on an eight-lane road just to get to a simulacrum of an inclusive urban place. The problem is not too much Disneyland thinking—it's not enough.

Noun

1. an insubstantial or vague semblance

   Broader terms

   semblanceglosscolorcolour

2. a representation of a person (especially in the form of sculpture)

   Synonyms

   effigyimage

   Broader terms

   representation

   Examples

   the coin bears an effigy of Lincoln

   the emperor's tomb had his image carved in stone