IDOL

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does idol mean? 

• IDOL (noun)
  The noun IDOL has 3 senses:

1. a material effigy that is worshipped

2. someone who is adored blindly and excessively

3. an ideal instance; a perfect embodiment of a concept

  Familiarity information: IDOL used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• IDOL (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A material effigy that is worshipped

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

god; graven image; idol

Context example:

money was his god

Hypernyms ("idol" is a kind of...):

effigy; image; simulacrum (a representation of a person (especially in the form of sculpture))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "idol"):

golden calf ((Old Testament) an idol made by Aaron for the Israelites to worship; destroyed by Moses; it is now used to refer to anything worshipped undeservedly)

joss (a Chinese god worshipped in the form of an idol)

Juggernaut (a crude idol of Krishna)

Derivation:

idolise; idolize (love unquestioningly and uncritically or to excess; venerate as an idol)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Someone who is adored blindly and excessively

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

idol; matinee idol

Hypernyms ("idol" is a kind of...):

lead; principal; star (an actor who plays a principal role)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "idol"):

heartthrob (an object of infatuation)

Derivation:

idolise; idolize (love unquestioningly and uncritically or to excess; venerate as an idol)

Sense 3

Meaning:

An ideal instance; a perfect embodiment of a concept

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

beau ideal; idol; paragon; perfection

Hypernyms ("idol" is a kind of...):

ideal (the idea of something that is perfect; something that one hopes to attain)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "idol"):

gold standard (a paragon of excellence)

Derivation:

idolise; idolize (love unquestioningly and uncritically or to excess; venerate as an idol)

 Context examples 

Not a human being that ever lived could wish to be loved better than I was loved; and him who thus loved me I absolutely worshipped: and I must renounce love and idol.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

And yet when I looked upon that ugly idol in the glass, I was conscious of no repugnance, rather of a leap of welcome.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Turning as from a fallen idol, she made other discoveries which rapidly dispelled her romantic illusions.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Then three or four western bad men aspired to clean out the town, were riddled like pepper-boxes for their pains, and public interest turned to other idols.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

I was their plaything and their idol, and something better—their child, the innocent and helpless creature bestowed on them by Heaven, whom to bring up to good, and whose future lot it was in their hands to direct to happiness or misery, according as they fulfilled their duties towards me.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

But the Doctor himself was the idol of the whole school: and it must have been a badly composed school if he had been anything else, for he was the kindest of men; with a simple faith in him that might have touched the stone hearts of the very urns upon the wall.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I could not, in those days, see God for His creature: of whom I had made an idol.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Want of exercise robs them of cheerfulness, and too much devotion to that idol of American women, the teapot, makes them feel as if they were all nerve and no muscle.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

“Oh! There is nothing,” observed Hamlet's aunt, “so satisfactory to one! There is nothing that is so much one's beau-ideal of—of all that sort of thing, speaking generally. There are some low minds (not many, I am happy to believe, but there are some) that would prefer to do what I should call bow down before idols. Positively Idols! Before service, intellect, and so on. But these are intangible points. Blood is not so. We see Blood in a nose, and we know it. We meet with it in a chin, and we say, “There it is! That's Blood!”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

He thought himself her idol, ugly as he was: he believed, as he said, that she preferred his "taille d'athlete" to the elegance of the Apollo Belvidere.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)