doppelgänger
noun
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According to German folklore, all living creatures have a spirit double who is invisible but identical to the living individual. These second selves are perceived as being distinct from ghosts (which appear only after death), and sometimes they are described as the spiritual opposite or negative of their human counterparts. German writers coined the word Doppelgänger (from doppel-, meaning "double," and -gänger, meaning "goer") to refer to such specters.
Synonyms
Examples of doppelgänger in a Sentence
Todd Longwell, Variety, 25 Sep. 2024
The idea is to reclaim her space within the industry via a pretty doppelganger.
—David Fear, Rolling Stone, 24 Sep. 2024
In the Emmys press room, Smith discussed his reasoning for making the reference to his name doppelganger.
—Wesley Stenzel, EW.com, 16 Sep. 2024
The best known of the cycle is Charles Chaplin’s The Great Dictator (1940), where the comedian plays both a Hitler doppelganger (same body type, same moustache) and a Jewish barber.
—Thomas Doherty, The Hollywood Reporter, 9 Aug. 2024
Your doppelganger cornering you in a lonely lighthouse.
—Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, The Week Us, theweek, 9 Aug. 2024
Starlight makes her peace (begrudgingly) with the fact that Hughie’s spent the last week screwing her doppelganger.
—Alex Raiman, EW.com, 18 July 2024
In Showtime’s 2017 Twin Peaks revival, MacLachlan reprised his role as FBI Agent Dale Cooper, as well as his dark doppelganger and Dougie, who was a tulpa created by the doppelganger to avoid returning to the Black Lodge.
—Glenn Garner, Deadline, 13 July 2024
All is not quiet on the marital front, as the wife asks for a divorce and the couple descends into a destructive cycle that not only includes infidelity and neglect, but spins into murder, a tentacled alien creature and doppelgangers.
—Borys Kit, The Hollywood Reporter, 9 July 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'doppelgänger.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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“Doppelgänger.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/doppelg%C3%A4nger. Accessed 8 Oct. 2024.
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