imago \ih-MAH-goh\, noun:
1. An idealized concept of a loved one, formed in childhood and retained unaltered in adult life.
2. Entomology. An adult insect.
She pictured him retaining, year after year, her imago in his heart, as strongly as his was impressed upon her own at that moment.
-- Ellen Wallace, King's Cope: a novel
The woman herself may change, but his imago of her once formed and given its lasting outlines in the heat of passion, does not change, so that he may himself even be faithful to a wife who is unfaithful.
-- Wilfrid Lay, Man's Unconscious Passion and Man's Unconscious Spirit
Imago is a term that originated in psychoanalysis but migrated into popular usage in the 20th Century.
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