avatar
Part of speech: noun
Morphological type: simple
Topics: video-games
Etymology: First use appears c. 1784, in The Hindu Wife; or, The Enchanted Fruit, by William Jones. Borrowed from Hindustani अवतार (avtār) / اوتار (avtār), from Sanskrit अवतार (avatāra, “descent of a deity from a heaven”), a compound of अव (ava, “off, away, down”) and the vṛddhi-stem of the root तॄ (tṝ, “to cross”) (whence तरति (tarati)).
In the computing sense, some use appeared in video games in the 1980s, such as the online roleplaying game Habitat (1985) by Lucasfilm Games (today LucasArts), by Chip Morningstar and Randy Farmer, later versions of the Ultima series (following religious use in Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar (1985)), and the pen and paper role-playing game Shadowrun (1989). Also popularized by the novel Snow Crash (1992) by Neal Stephenson.
Inflected forms:
form: avatars
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: avatara
pos: noun
tags: alternative
rare
Senses:
gloss: An incarnation of a deity, particularly Vishnu.
pos: noun
tags: Hinduism
gloss: The embodiment of an idea or concept; an instantiation, especially a personification or incarnation.
pos: noun
examples: ...that a new avatar of Mrs. Siddons has appeared at Covent Garden, in the shape of her niece Fanny Kemble...
And honest Alan, who was a grim fire-eater in his day, has in this new avatar no more desperate purpose than to steal some young gentleman's attention from his Ovid, […] [Contrasting the historical Alan Breac with his incarnation in the novel.]
gloss: A digital representation of a person or being in the form of a digital model, used online as a simulation or emulation of a person, or as a person's online alter ego, in a virtual world, virtual chat room, or metaverse.
pos: noun
tags: Internet
examples: The people are pieces of software called avatars. They are the audiovisual bodies that people use to communicate with each other in the Metaverse.
A virtual intelligence is an advanced form of user interface software. VIs use a variety of methods to simulate natural conversation, including an audio interface and an avatar personality to interact with.
Devices now track and record our every move and, whether we like it or not, each one of us will bequeath to posterity a virtual avatar, a digital being whose calls, messages, transactions, loves and losses will live on in a vast, unregulated cyberspace. The afterlife has arrived, at least for our cyberbeings.
Last year, a 14-year-old boy died by suicide after falling in love with a chatbot from Character.AI. The last thing he did was have a conversation with an AI avatar that, possibly failing to recognize the severity of the situation, reportedly encouraged him to go through with his plan to “join her”.
gloss: A simple and static or nearly static digital representation of a person or being in the form of a small digital object, used online as a simulacrum or token of a person or that person's online alter ego, in any digital environment but especially in nonvirtual, nonmetaversal ones.
pos: noun
tags: Internet
Derived words: ATLA
Avatard
avatarfag
avatarhood
avataric
avi
avvie
brand avatar
gravatar
Translations:
lang: Arabic
word: أَفَاتَار
roman: ʔafatār
lang: Catalan
word: avatar
lang: Chinese Mandarin
word: 紙娃娃 /纸娃娃
roman: zhǐwáwá
lang: Chinese Mandarin
word: 頭像 /头像
roman: tóuxiàng
lang: Czech
word: avatar
lang: Dutch
word: avatar
lang: Dutch
word: ava
lang: Esperanto
word: avataro
lang: Finnish
word: hahmo
lang: Finnish
word: virtuaalihahmo
lang: Finnish
word: avatar
lang: French
word: avatar
lang: French
word: emblème
lang: French
word: symbole
lang: French
word: photo de profil
lang: Georgian
word: ავატარი
roman: avaṭari
lang: German
word: Avatar
lang: Greek
word: άβαταρ
roman: ávatar
lang: Greek
word: αβατάρ
roman: avatár
lang: Indonesian
word: avatar
lang: Italian
word: avatar
lang: Italian
word: emblema
lang: Italian
word: simbolo
lang: Japanese
word: アバター
roman: abatā
lang: Korean
word: 아바타
roman: abata
lang: Māori
word: tuatangata
lang: Polish
word: awatar
lang: Portuguese
word: avatar
lang: Russian
word: авата́р
roman: avatár
lang: Spanish
word: avatar
lang: Spanish
word: emblema
lang: Spanish
word: símbolo
lang: Swedish
word: avatar
lang: Thai
word: อวตาร
roman: à-wá-dtaan
lang: Thai
word: อวทาร์
roman: à-wá-taa
lang: Turkish
word: avatar
lang: Ukrainian
word: аватар
roman: avatar