avatar
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\n \n Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 28, 2024 is:\n \n
\n \n\n avatar • \\AV-uh-tar\\ • noun
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An avatar is an electronic image (as in a video game) that represents, and can be manipulated by, a computer user. Avatar can also refer to the embodiment of something (such as a concept or philosophy) often in a person, or to an incarnation of a deity\u2014especially a Hindu deity, such as Vishnu.
\n\n// Before they started playing the game, Maeve and Sanaa customized their avatars.
\n\n// She has come to be regarded as an avatar of charity and concern for the poor.
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\u201c\u2018I am crying,\u2019 my editor said when I connected with her via FaceTime on my Apple Vision Pro. \u2018You look like a computer man.\u2019 What made her choke with laughter was ... the digital avatar that the device had generated when I had pointed its curved, glass front at my face during setup. I couldn\u2019t see the me that she saw, but apparently it was uncanny. You look handsome and refined, she told me, but also fake.\u201d \u2014 Ian Bogost, The Atlantic, 3 Feb. 2024
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Water. Earth. Fire. Air. These are just some of the elements and environments that video game avatars\u2014the images representing and controlled by players\u2014have faced since the days of Space Invaders, to say nothing of today's Pandora\u2019s box of assorted baddies. Avatar comes from the Sanskrit word avat\u0101ra\u1e25, meaning \u201cdescent.\u201d When avatar first appeared in English in the late 18th century, it referred to the descent of a deity to the earth\u2014typically, the incarnation in earthly form of Vishnu or another Hindu deity. It later came to refer to any incarnation in human form, and then to any embodiment (such as the embodiment of a concept or philosophy), whether or not in the form of a person. All of these senses of avatar are still in use today, joined by the more recent computing/gaming sense, which may refer to \u201cyou\u201d embodied as a mustachioed Italian plumber, for example, even if you are not, in fact, a mustachioed Italian plumber.
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