simulacrum

noun

Etymology: Learned borrowing from Latin simulācrum (“image, likeness”), from simul(ā) + -crum (a variant of -culum, from Proto-Indo-European *-tlom, a suffix forming instrument nouns), from similis (“similar (to)”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *sem- (“one; together”).

1. A physical image or representation of a deity, person, or thing.

   “a simulacrum of a New York studio apartment”

   “[H]e crossed the haunted Almo, renowned of yore for its healing virtues, and whose stream the far-famed simulacrum, the image of Cybele,) which fell from heaven, was wont to be laved with every coming spring; […]”

2. A thing which has the appearance or form of another thing, but not its true qualities; a thing which simulates another thing; an imitation; a semblance.

   “One Life; a little gleam of Time between two Eternities; no second chance to us forevermore! It were well for us to live not as fools and simulacra, but as wise and realities.”

   “He is become a mere enchanted simulacrum of a Duke; bewitched under worse than Thessalian spells; without faculty of willing, except as she wills; his People and he the plaything of this Circe or Hecate, that has got hold of him.”