avatar

• avatara (rare)

First use appears c. 1784,^[1] in The Hindu Wife; or, The Enchanted Fruit, by William Jones. Borrowed from Hindustani अवतार / 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”). 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,^[2] 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.^[1]

• Rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)
• Hyphenation: av‧a‧tar
• (original approximation) enPR: ŭv′(ə)thär, IPA^(key): /ˈʌv(ə)θɑːɹ/, (Indic) /ˈav(a)t̪aːɾ/
• (spelling pronunciation) enPR: ăvət(h)är
• (Commonwealth) IPA^(key): /ˌæv.əˈtɑː(ɹ)/, /ˈæv.ə.tɑː(ɹ)/, /-θɑː(ɹ)/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

  • Audio (General Australian):

    (file)

• (Canada, US) IPA^(key): /ˈæv.ə.tɑɹ/

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

avatar (plural avatars)

2. (Hinduism) An incarnation of a deity, particularly Vishnu.
4. The embodiment of an idea or concept; an instantiation, especially a personification or incarnation.
   • 1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVI, in Romance and Reality. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 177:

     ...that a new avatar of Mrs. Siddons has appeared at Covent Garden, in the shape of her niece Fanny Kemble...

   • 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:

     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.]

6. (Internet, video games) A complex and dynamic 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.
   • 1992, Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash, New York: Bantam Books, →ISBN, pages 35–36:

     The people are pieces of software called avatars. They are the audiovisual bodies that people use to communicate with each other in the Metaverse.

   • 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Computers: Virtual Intelligence (VI) Codex entry:

     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.

   • 2013 November 27, Roger Cohen, “The past in our future”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     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.

   • 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^[2]:

     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”.

8. (Internet, video games) 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.

   Hyponyms: profile picture, pfp, user pic

   Coordinate term: icon

• → Japanese: アバター

• Category:Avatar on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons

Borrowed from English, from Sanskrit.

• IPA^(key): (Central) [ə.βəˈtar]
• IPA^(key): (Balearic) [ə.vəˈtar]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia) [a.vaˈtar]

avatar m (plural avatars)

1. (religion) avatar
2. (computer games) avatar

• avarat, tarava

From English avatar, from Sanskrit अवतार (avatāra).

• IPA^(key): /ˈɑʋɑtɑr/, [ˈɑ̝ʋɑ̝t̪ɑ̝r]
• Rhymes: -ɑʋɑtɑr
• Syllabification^(key): a‧va‧tar
• Hyphenation^(key): ava‧tar

avatar

1. avatar (earthly incarnation of a deity, particularly Vishnu)
2. (rare) avatar (physical embodiment of an idea or concept)

   Synonym: ruumiillistuma

3. (rare) avatar (digital representation of a person or being)

   Synonyms: hahmo, virtuaalihahmo

• “avatar”, in Kielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish]‎^[3] (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland), 2004–, retrieved 2 July 2023

From Hindustani अवतार / 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 तरति (√tṝ, “to cross”).

• IPA^(key): /a.va.taʁ/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Homophone: avatars
• Hyphenation: ava‧tar

avatar m (plural avatars)

1. (Hinduism) avatar
2. (computing) avatar
3. (plural tantum) misadventures, incidents

   Synonyms: aléa, vicissitude, péripétie, bouleversement

• “avatar”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

From English avatar, from Hindustani अवतार / اوتار (avtār), from Sanskrit अवतार (avatāra, “descent of a deity from a heaven”). Doublet of awatara.

• (Standard Indonesian) IPA^(key): /aˈvatar/ [aˈfa.t̪ar]
• Rhymes: -atar
• Syllabification: a‧va‧tar

avatar (plural avatar-avatar)

1. (Hinduism) avatar (the incarnation of a deity, particularly Vishnu)

   Synonym: awatara

2. (computing) avatar (a digital representation of a person or being)

• “avatar” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016.

• avatara

Unadapted borrowing from English avatar.

avatar m (invariable)

1. avatar (all senses)

• tarava, varata

Borrowed from French avatar, from Sanskrit अवतार (avatāra, “descent of a deity from a heaven”).^[1][2] The computing sense comes from English.

• Hyphenation: a‧va‧tar

avatar m (plural avatares)

2. (Hinduism) avatar
4. (computing, video games) avatar

Borrowed from French avatar.

avatar n (plural avataruri)

1. avatar

• IPA^(key): /aʋǎtaːr/
• Hyphenation: a‧va‧tar

avàtār m anim (Cyrillic spelling ава̀та̄р)

1. avatar

• avatara

• IPA^(key): /abaˈtaɾ/ [a.β̞aˈt̪aɾ]
• Rhymes: -aɾ
• Syllabification: a‧va‧tar

avatar m (plural avatares)

1. avatar
2. (in the plural) vicissitudes, ups and downs

   Synonyms: vicisitudes, altibajos

• “avatar”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 10 December 2024

avatar c

1. (Hinduism) an avatar
2. an avatar (representing a user on an internet forum, a player in a video game, or the like)

• avatar in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• avatar in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• avatar in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)