Definition of imago in English:
imago
nounPlural imagines, Plural imagos ɪˈmeɪɡəʊ
1Entomology
The final and fully developed adult stage of an insect, typically winged.
Example sentencesExamples
- He stands apart from the new flight of British composers, ‘who seem very sure of themselves, like an imago, a butterfly that enters the world fully formed.’
- The 7-rayed imago is approximately 1.5 mm diameter.
- Almost instantly the larvae mutate into full grown imagos and you have yourself an Entopod battalion.
- After a third larval stage they pupate in the nest material and emerge as imagos after the fledglings have left the nest.
- The imago can become multiradiate at the time of metamorphosis, or it can be 5-rayed at metamorphosis and add the supernumerary rays during post larval growth stages.
2Psychoanalysis
An unconscious idealized mental image of someone, especially a parent, which influences a person's behaviour.
Example sentencesExamples
- Back here, I briefly mentioned the idea of the imago.
- They constitute a single set of systematic transfigurations of the Yagwoia transpersonal, archetypal imagos of their Self and its energies.
- To be sure, in both Freudian and Lacanian accounts this scenario establishes the ‘first’ sexual relations: those attached to the imago of the mother and to the autoeroticism associated with narcissism.
- The ego's defence is to split off the aggression and to project it onto parental imagos who in turn threaten to destroy the child.
- Lacan's elaboration of the Jungian concept of the imago seems instructive here.
Origin
Late 18th century (in sense 1): modern Latin use of Latin imago 'image'. sense 2 dates from the early 20th century.