nounplural noun imagos, plural noun imagoes, plural noun imagines/iˈmājəˌnēz/ /ɪˈmeɪdʒəˌniz/ /iˈmajəˌnēz/ /ɪˈmædʒəˌniz/

• 1Entomology
  The final and fully developed adult stage of an insect, typically winged.

  ‘After a third larval stage they pupate in the nest material and emerge as imagos after the fledglings have left the nest.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘He stands apart from the new flight of British composers, ‘who seem very sure of themselves, like an imago, a butterfly that enters the world fully formed.’’
  • ‘The imago can become multiradiate at the time of metamorphosis, or it can be 5-rayed at metamorphosis and add the supernumerary rays during post larval growth stages.’
  • ‘Almost instantly the larvae mutate into full grown imagos and you have yourself an Entopod battalion.’
  • ‘The 7-rayed imago is approximately 1.5 mm diameter.’
• 2Psychoanalysis
  An unconscious idealized mental image of someone, especially a parent, which influences a person's behavior.

  ‘Lacan's elaboration of the Jungian concept of the imago seems instructive here.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘They constitute a single set of systematic transfigurations of the Yagwoia transpersonal, archetypal imagos of their Self and its energies.’
  • ‘Back here, I briefly mentioned the idea of the imago.’
  • ‘The ego's defence is to split off the aggression and to project it onto parental imagos who in turn threaten to destroy the child.’
  • ‘To be sure, in both Freudian and Lacanian accounts this scenario establishes the ‘first’ sexual relations: those attached to the imago of the mother and to the autoeroticism associated with narcissism.’