Doppelganger
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A ghostly double of a living person, especially one that haunts such a person.
""An orderly let out the news that you are here," she said. "But don't worry. We've sent out a doppelganger to fool the Sons, and the orderly has been sentenced to slavery under the pyramid builder for twenty lifetimes. I hate my brother! How dare he fight us with the sky falling?""
- 2 a ghostly double of a living person that haunts its living counterpart wordnet
- 3 An evil twin.
- 4 A remarkably similar double.
"Stars in Their Eyes ran for 16 years from 1990, and had the "wow" factor moment of transforming a pub singer into their idol, as the contestant said the famous words: "Tonight Matthew, I'm going to be…" and then stepped out from a puff of dry ice as their musical doppelganger."
- 5 A monster that takes the forms of people, usually after killing them.
Example
More examples"Some people base reality in their local sphere. Maybe, most people do not travel enough, I mention to Bratislav. A bit aghast becomes Bratislav, of Croatian ancestry. I tell him about the Daoist notion that one's own garden or local neighbourhood may be a microcosm that reflects macrocosmic reality. All the learning from all the travelling one can do may lie right here locally. A snail on the sidewalk may have a "doppelganger" (Bratislav's conceptual word) in the macrocosm."
Etymology
Borrowed from German Doppelgänger (“ghostly spirit”, literally “double-walker”).
Related phrases
More for "doppelganger"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.