ARCHETYPE

Archetype

In the first sense, many more informal terms are frequently used instead, such as "standard example" or "basic example", and the longer form "archetypal example" is also found. In mathematics, an archetype is often called a "canonical example".

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archetype

Noun

  1. An original model of which all other similar persons, objects, or concepts are merely derivative, copied, patterned, or emulated; a prototype
  2. A character, story, or object that is based on a known character, story, or object.
  3. An ideal example of something; a quintessence.
  4. According to the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, a universal pattern of thought, present in an individual's unconscious, inherited from the past collective experience of humanity.

Verb

  1. To depict as, model using or otherwise associate a subject or object with an archetype.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: archetype
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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