avatar
/ˈavətɑː
/noun
1chiefly Hinduism A manifestation of a deity or released soul in bodily form on earth; an incarnate divine teacher.Worship of Vishnu and his various avatars especially Rama and Krishna in a profoundly devotional form is the basis of Vaishnavism....
- Rama, the hero of the epic Ramayana was another major avatar of Vishnu, incarnated in order to rid the world of the demon Ravana.
- But it is as Krishna, the eighth avatar, that Vishnu steals hearts and minds.
1.1An incarnation, embodiment, or manifestation of a person or idea: he chose John Stuart Mill as the avatar of the liberal view...
- Both contemporary satirists have really borrowed the idea from the high avatar of absurdism Samuel Beckett.
- He has many incarnations, his avatars are everywhere!
- In some circumstances, they weren't even alive during the period in which the real-life avatars of their plastic idols actually flourished.
2An icon or figure representing a particular person in a computer game, Internet forum, etc. conversation is depicted in a balloon over the avatar’s head...
- On a lighter note, that the ghetto has become a contended space can be finally demonstrated by a look at its virtual avatars in cyberspace.
- In terms of self-representation, the homepage is like a statue carved out of marble labelled carefully at the bottom where the weblog is like an avatar in cyberspace that we wear like a skin.
- Services and products being explored include avatar conferencing, avatars for computer games, avatar fashion websites, avatars for next-generation mobile communications and avatar e-mail.
Origin
From Sanskrit avatāra 'descent', from ava 'down' + tar- 'to cross'.
- reinsure
- reinsurer
- reintegrate
- reintegration
- reintegrative
- reinter
- reintermediate
- reintermediation
- reinterment
- reintern
- reinternment
- reinterpret
- reinterpretation
- reinterrogate
- reinterview
- reintimate
- reintroduce
- reintroduction
- reintrusion
- reinvade
- reinvasion
- reinvent
- reinvention
- reinvent the wheel
- reinverse