archetype

noun

ar·​che·​type ˈär-ki-ˌtīp How to pronounce archetype (audio)
1
: the original pattern or model of which all things of the same type are representations or copies : prototype
… the House of Commons, the archetype of all the representative assemblies which now meet …Thomas Babington Macaulay
also : a perfect example
He is the archetype of a successful businessman.
2
3
psychology : an inherited idea or mode of thought in the psychology of Carl Gustav Jung that is derived from the experience of the race and is present in the unconscious of the individual
archetypal adjective
or less commonly archetypical
an archetypal English village
archetypally adverb
or less commonly archetypically

Did you know?

In her 2024 book Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World, author Naomi Klein writes that “the doppelganger archetype has appeared across time to explore issues of life and death, the body versus the soul, the ego versus the id …” Klein doesn’t mean that the same double, evil twin, or changeling keeps popping up throughout history, of course, but that the original concept of a doppelganger has served as a pattern, model, or template for writers to use in different ways, each supplying it with their own imagined details. Archetype’s origins are in two Greek words: the verb archein, meaning “to begin,” and the noun typos, meaning “type.” Since its debut in English in the mid-1500s, archetype has taken on uses specific to the ideas of Plato, John Locke, and Carl Jung, but in everyday prose, archetype is most commonly used to mean “a perfect example,” as in “Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is considered an archetype of doppelganger fiction.”

Examples of archetype in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
By Hannah Giorgis At first glance, the main character of The Teacher, the debut feature film by the Palestinian British writer-director Farah Nabulsi, seems drawn from a familiar inspirational-movie archetype. Hannah Giorgis, The Atlantic, 11 Apr. 2025 Any romance reader familiar with the enemies-to-lovers trope should recognize this archetype. Kathleen Walsh, Glamour, 10 Apr. 2025 West, the model for the NBA logo and in many ways the original prototype for Curry’s combo-guard archetype as a do-everything scoring dynamo with a sweet shot, was a legendary player for the Lakers in the 1960s and 1970s before helping build two separate dynasties in Los Angeles as an executive. Joseph Dycus, Mercury News, 2 Apr. 2025 Tour guide Danielle Oteri has navigated dozens of group trips through southern Italy and New York City, and they’re all typically made up of the same archetypes: the planner, the drinker, the one who is quietly boiling with resentment. Aditi Shrikant, CNBC, 26 Mar. 2025 See All Example Sentences for archetype

Word History

Etymology

Latin archetypum, from Greek archetypon, from neuter of archetypos archetypal, from archein + typos type

First Known Use

1545, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Time Traveler
The first known use of archetype was in 1545

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Cite this Entry

“Archetype.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/archetype. Accessed 21 Apr. 2025.

Kids Definition

archetype

noun
ar·​che·​type ˈär-ki-ˌtīp How to pronounce archetype (audio)
: the original pattern or model from which something is copied
archetypal adjective

Medical Definition

archetype

noun
ar·​che·​type ˈär-ki-ˌtīp How to pronounce archetype (audio)
1
a
: a primitive generalized plan of structure deduced from the characters of a natural group of plants or animals and assumed to be the characteristic of the ancestor from which they are all descended
b
: the original ancestor of a group of plants or animals
2
: an inherited idea or mode of thought in the psychology of C. G. Jung that is derived from the experience of the race and is present in the unconscious of the individual
archetypal adjective

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