simulakrum

Also known as simulacra, dummy, fake, replica, dummy object, example object, placeholder, filler

thumb|Image of a real apple (left), and plastic food model apple (right). The fake apple is a simulacrum. A simulacrum (: simulacra or simulacrums, from Latin simulacrum, meaning "likeness, semblance") is a representation or imitation of a person or thing. The word was first recorded in the English language in the late 16th century, used to describe a representation, such as a statue or a painting, especially of a god. By the late 19th century, it had gathered a secondary association of inferiority: an image without the substance or qualities of the original. Literary critic Fredric Jameson of