One way to hold this word: something comes down from a higher place and puts on a body so it can be seen and met here. The real thing stays where it was. What arrives is a shape it can wear — a fish, a king, a person in a green jacket. Whoever meets that shape is really meeting the thing behind it. Every use of avatar keeps this two-layer picture: a being in one place, and a visible form of it standing somewhere else.
From the word’s history
Wiktionary traces avatar to Sanskrit avatāra, 'descent of a deity from a heaven', built from ava ('off, away, down') and the root tṝ ('to cross'). It came into English through Hindustani avtār and is first attested around 1784.
來源資料把 avatar 追到梵文 avatāra，意思是「神從天上降下來」。它由 ava（往下、離開）和字根 tṝ（越過）組成。這個字經由印度斯坦語的 avtār 進入英文，最早的紀錄大約在 1784 年。「往下越過」這個畫面，正好就是核心意象裡「從上面降到這裡、穿上一個看得見的身體」。
Wiktionary entry for 'avatar' (packet source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:18506800:65503), etymology_text field
登入就可以看每一支怎麼連回核心畫面。