avatar
nounCA, US /ˈæv.ə.tɑɹ/ · South-Asia /əʋ(ə)t̪ɑr/
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.
Hinduism An incarnation of a deity, particularly Vishnu.
The embodiment of an idea or concept; an instantiation, especially a personification or incarnation.
- ...that a new avatar of Mrs. Siddons has appeared at Covent Garden, in the shape of her niece Fanny Kemble...1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVI, in Romance and Reality. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 177:
- 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.]1886 May 1 – July 31, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Dedication”, in Kidnapped, being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751: […], London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 1886, →OCLC, pages v–vi:
Video games Internet 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.
- The people are pieces of software called avatars. They are the audiovisual bodies that people use to communicate with each other in the Metaverse.1992, Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash, New York: Bantam Books, →ISBN, pages 35–36:
- 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.2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Computers: Virtual Intelligence (VI) Codex entry:
2 more examples
- 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.2013 November 27, Roger Cohen, “The past in our future”, in The New York Times:
- 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”.2025 July 16, Marcus Mendes, “Grok may be breaking App Store rules with sexualized AI chatbots, and that’s not the only problem”, in 9 to 5 Mac:
Video games Internet 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.
- Derived terms
- ATLA, Avatard, avatarfag, avatarhood, avataric, avi, avvie, brand avatar, gravatar