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Words Travel
Devanagari letterforms in black ink on handmade paper.

avatar

What did avatar mean before a picture on a screen?

What do you notice?

English, including screens

avatar

Sanskrit: a sacred descent

अवतार

The screen sense is late. The religious word is not cancelled.

Avatar is a Sanskrit word. On screens it now means a stand-in picture.

The older meaning is a descent. The computer sense is late. It does not cancel the religious one.

If you click an avatar, you are using a sacred word in a new job. The first meaning is still used. Both can be true at once.

You can stop here. The word already moved.

Go find a traveling word

The screen was the door.

More ways to look outside