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Origin and history of idol

idol(n.)

mid-13c., "image of a deity as an object of (pagan) worship," from Old French idole "idol, graven image, pagan god" (11c.), from Latin idolum "image (mental or physical), form," especially "apparition, ghost," but used in Church Latin for "false god, image of a pagan deity as an object of worship." This is from Greek eidōlon "mental image, apparition, phantom," also "material image, statue," in Ecclesiastical Greek," a pagan idol," from eidos "form, shape; likeness, resemblance" (see -oid).

A Greek word for "image," used in Jewish and early Christian writers for "image of a false god," hence also "false god." The Germanic languages generally began with a word for "god" prefixed to indicate "false god" (literally "off-god"), hence "image of a false god" (Old English afgod, Danish afgud, Swedish avgud, Old High German abgot, compounds with af-/ab- "away, away from" (source of off) + god). Old Norse skurgoð "idol" is literally "carved god."

The older Greek senses sometimes have been used in English. The figurative sense of "something idolized" is by 1560s (in Middle English the figurative sense was "someone who is false or untrustworthy"). The meaning "a person regarded with the reverence due a deity, human object of adoring devotion" is from 1590s.

also from mid-13c.

Entries linking to idol

off(prep., adv.)

by c. 1200 as an emphatic form of Old English of (see of), employed in the adverbial use of that word. The prepositional meaning "away from" and the adjectival sense of "farther" were not firmly fixed in this variant until 17c., but once they were they left the original of with the transferred and weakened senses of the word. Meaning "not working" is from 1861.

Off the cuff "extemporaneously, without preparation" (1938) is from the notion of speaking from notes written in haste on one's shirt cuffs. In reference to clothing, off the rack (adj.) "not tailored, not made to individual requirements, ready-made" is by 1963, on the notion of buying it from the rack of a clothing store; off the record "not to be publicly disclosed" is from 1933; off the wall "crazy" is 1968, probably from the notion of a lunatic "bouncing off the walls" or else in reference to carom shots in squash, handball, etc.

idolatry(n.)

"worship of idols and images," mid-13c., from Old French idolatrie (12c.), from Vulgar Latin *idolatria, contraction of Late Latin idololatria (Tertullian), from Ecclesiastical Greek eidololatria "worship of idols," from eidolon "image" (see idol) + latreia "worship, service" (see -latry).