image

Etymology

From Middle English ymage, borrowed from Old French image, from Latin imāgō (“a copy, likeness, image”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eym-; the same PIE root is the source of imitari (“to copy, imitate”); see imitate. Displaced native Old English biliþe (“an image, a representation, resemblance, likeness; pattern, example”). Doublet of imago.

noun

1. An optical or other representation of a real object; a graphic; a picture.
   The Bible forbids the worship of graven images.
   Drawings and pictures are more than mere ornaments in scientific discourse. Blackboard sketches, geological maps, diagrams of molecular structure, astronomical photographs, MRI images, the many varieties of statistical charts and graphs: These pictorial devices are indispensable tools for presenting evidence, for explaining a theory, for telling a story. 2012 March, Brian Hayes, “Pixels or Perish”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, archived from the original on 2013-02-19, page 106
2. A mental picture of something not real or not present.
   Think of banking today and the image is of grey-suited men in towering skyscrapers. Its future, however, is being shaped in converted warehouses and funky offices in San Francisco, New York and London, where bright young things in jeans and T-shirts huddle around laptops, sipping lattes or munching on free food. 2013-08-03, “Revenge of the nerds”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847
3. A statue or idol.
4. (computing) A file that contains all information needed to produce a live working copy. (See disk image and image copy.)
   Most game console emulators do not come with any ROM images for copyright reasons.
5. A characteristic of a person, group or company etc., style, manner of dress, how one is or wishes to be perceived by others.
6. (mathematics) What a function maps to.
   The number 6 is the image of 3 under f that is defined as f(x) = 2x.
7. (mathematics) The subset of a codomain comprising those elements that are images of something.
   The image of this step function is the set of integers.
8. (radio) A form of interference: a weaker "copy" of a strong signal that occurs at a different frequency.
9. (obsolete) Show; appearance; cast.

verb

1. (transitive) To represent by an image or symbol; to portray.
   1718, Alexander Pope, The Iliad of Homer, London: Bernard Lintot, Volume IV, Observations on the Fifteenth Book, Note 14 on verse 252, p. 215, This Representation of the Terrors which must have attended the Conflict of two such mighty Powers as Jupiter and Neptune, whereby the Elements had been mix’d in Confusion, and the whole Frame of Nature endangered, is imaged in these few Lines with a Nobleness suitable to the Occasion.
   For example, in one use of content analysis, U.S. researchers Victoria Holden, William Holden, and Gary Davis (1997) examined the growing controversy over the racial imaging of indigenous peoples symbolized in sports team nicknames […] 2000, Mary Ann Schwartz, BarBara Marliene Scott, Madine M. L. Vanderplaat, Sociology: Making Sense of the Social World, page 51
2. (transitive) To reflect, mirror.
   See’st thou yon river, whose translucent wave, Forth issuing from the darkness, windeth through The argent streets o’ th’ City, imaging The soft inversion of her tremulous Domes, 1829, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Timbuctoo”, in The Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson, volume I, London: J.M. Dent & Sons, published 1906, page 10
3. (transitive) To create an image of.
   The single-imaging optic of the mammalian eye offers some distinct visual advantages. Such lenses can take in photons from a wide range of angles, increasing light sensitivity. They also have high spatial resolution, resolving incoming images in minute detail. 2013 July-August, Fenella Saunders, “Tiny Lenses See the Big Picture”, in American Scientist
4. (transitive, computing) To create a complete backup copy of a file system or other entity.