avatar.
An incarnation of a deity, particularly Vishnu.
Meaning & usage
An incarnation of a deity, particularly Vishnu.
A representation within a dimension of an entity that exists outside of that dimension. One which serves to act in place of or on behalf of the entity; a simulacrum.
A representation within a dimension of an entity that exists outside of that dimension. One which serves to act in place of or on behalf of the entity; a simulacrum. The embodiment of an idea or concept; an instantiation, especially an incarnation or personification.
A representation within a dimension of an entity that exists outside of that dimension. One which serves as the means through which the entity interacts with its environment; a player character or host.
A representation within a dimension of an entity that exists outside of that dimension. One which serves as the identifying token for the entity within the dimension. A graphical representation of a user or persona; used in reference to any digital environment, but especially nonmetaversal ones.
A representation within a dimension of an entity that exists outside of that dimension. One which serves as the identifying token for the entity within the dimension. A character model, used virtually as an emulation of a user or their persona.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂ew Proto-Indo-Iranian *Háwa Sanskrit अव (ava) Proto-Indo-European *terh₂- Sanskrit तॄ (tṝ) Sanskrit तार (tāra) Sanskrit अवतार (avatāra)der. English avatar 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)). First attested in c. 1784 in The Hindu Wife or The Enchanted Fruit, by William Jones. The computing sense was first attested in video games in the 1980s, such as the online roleplaying game Habitat (1985) by Lucasfilm Games (today LucasArts), 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). This sense was also popularized by the novel Snow Crash (1992) by Neal Stephenson.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.