(1) Transformation into a god. (2) The perfect example.

In ancient Greece, historical figures were sometimes worshipped as gods. In Rome, apotheosis was rare until the emperor Augustus declared the dead Julius Caesar to be a god, and soon other dead emperors were being *apotheosized* as well. In older paintings you may see a heroic figure— Napoleon, George Washington, or Shakespeare, for example—being raised into the clouds, symbolizing his or her apotheosis. But today any great classic example of something can be called its apotheosis. You might hear it said, for example, that Baroque music reached its apotheosis in the works of J. S. Bach, or that the Duesenberg Phaeton was the apotheosis of the touring car.

Denying the existence of God or divine power.

In the Roman Empire, early Christians were called atheistic because they denied the existence of the Roman gods. And once the Christian church was firmly established, it condemned the Romans as *atheists* because they didn't believe in the Christian God. In later centuries, English-speaking Christians would often use the words *pagan* and *heathen* to describe such non- Christians, while *atheist* would be reserved for those who actually denied the existence of any god. *Atheism* is different from *agnosticism,* which claims that the existence of any higher power is unknowable; and lots of people who simply don't think much about religion often call themselves *agnostics* as well.

(1) A building serving as the burial place of or containing memorials to the famous dead of a nation. (2) A group of notable persons or things.

Each of the important Roman gods and goddesses had many temples erected in their name. But in 27 B.C. a temple to all the gods together was completed in Rome; twice destroyed, it was ultimately replaced by a third temple around A.D. 126. This extraordinary domed structure is still one of the important sights of Rome, and the burial place for the painters Raphael and Carracci and two kings. In Paris, a great church was completed in 1789–90; named the Panthéon, it was announced as the future resting place of France's great figures, and the bodies of Victor Hugo, Louis Pasteur, Marie Curie, and many others now rest within its walls.

(1) Government by officials who are regarded as divinely inspired. (2) A state governed by a theocracy.

In the Middle Ages, the Muslim empires stretching around much of the Mediterranean were theocracies, and the pope ruled most of modern-day Italy. But theocracies are rare today. Modern Iran and Saudi Arabia (and perhaps half a dozen others) are usually regarded as *theocratic* governments, since, even though Iran's president is elected by popular vote and Saudi Arabia is ruled by a royal family, the countries' laws are religious laws. But when a government tries to follow all the teachings of a single religion, things usually don't work out terribly well, so U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights forbid using religion as the principal basis for democracy.

(1) A religious image usually painted on a small wooden panel: idol. (2) Emblem, symbol.

In the Eastern Orthodox church, much importance is given to icons, usually small portraits on wood—sometimes with gold-leaf paint—of Jesus, Mary, or a saint, which hang in churches and in the houses of the faithful. The Orthodox church favors icons partly because they communicate directly and forcefully even to uneducated people. They are regarded as sacred; some believers actually pray to them, and many believe that icons have carried out miracles. The common modern uses of *icon* grew out of this original sense. The fact that Orthodox icons have a symbolic role led to *icon* being used to mean simply “symbol.” Because of the icon's sacredness, the term also came to mean “idol.” And once we began to use *idol* to refer to pop-culture stars, it wasn't long before we began using *icon* the same way. But for the little computer-desktop images that you click on, the older meaning of “symbol” is the one we're thinking of.

(1) Symbolic. (2) Relating to a greatly admired and successful person or thing.

The original meaning of *iconic* was essentially “resembling an icon,” but today it more often seems to mean “so admired that it could be the subject of an icon.” And with that meaning, *iconic* has become part of the language of advertising and publicity; today companies and magazines and TV hosts are constantly encouraging us to think of some consumer item or pop star or show as first-rate or immortal or flawless—absolutely “iconic”—when he or she or it is actually nothing of the kind.

(1) A person who destroys religious images or opposes their use. (2) A person who attacks settled beliefs or institutions.

When the early books of the Bible were being written, most of the other Middle Eastern religions had more than one god; these religions generally encouraged the worship of idols of the various gods, which were often regarded as magical objects. But in the Ten Commandments given to Moses in the Old Testament, God prohibits the making of “graven images” or “idols” for worship, proclaiming that the Jews are to worship only one God, who is too great to be represented in an idol. However, by the 6th century A.D., Christians had begun to create religious images in order to focus the prayers of the faithful. Opposition to icons led to the *Iconoclastic* Controversy in A.D. 726, when, supported by the pope, iconoclasts began smashing and burning the images in churches and monasteries (*clast-* comes from the Greek word meaning “to break”). In time, peace was restored, and almost all Christians have since accepted depictions of Jesus, Mary, and the saints. Today an iconoclast is someone who constantly argues with conventional thinking, refusing to “worship” the objects of everyone else's “faith.”

(1) The imagery and symbolism of a work of art or an artist. (2) The study of artistic symbolism.

If you saw a 17th-century painting of a man writing at a desk with a lion at his feet, would you know you were looking at St. Jerome, translator of the Bible, who, according to legend, once pulled a thorn from the paw of a lion, which thereafter became his devoted friend? And if a painting showed a young woman reclining on a bed with a shower of gold descending on her, would you recognize her as Danaë, locked up in a tower to keep her away from the lustful Zeus, who then managed to gain access to her by transforming himself into golden light (or golden coins)? An *iconographic* approach to art can make museum-going a lot of fun—and amateur *iconographers* know there are also plenty of symbols lurking in the images that advertisers bombard us with daily.