Image
Middle English: from Old French, from Latin imago ; related to imitate.
wiktionary
From Middle English ymage, borrowed from Old French image, from Latin imāgō(“a copy, likeness, image”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eym-; the same PIE root is the source of imitari(“to copy, imitate”); see imitate.
etymonline
image (n.)
c. 1200, "piece of statuary; artificial representation that looks like a person or thing," from Old French image "image, likeness; figure, drawing, portrait; reflection; statue," earlier imagene (11c.), from Latin imaginem (nominative imago) "copy, imitation, likeness; statue, picture," also "phantom, ghost, apparition," figuratively "idea, appearance," from stem of imitari "to copy, imitate" (from PIE root *aim- "to copy").
Meaning "reflection in a mirror" is early 14c. The mental sense was in Latin, and appears in English late 14c. Sense of "public impression" is attested in isolated cases from 1908 but not in common use until its rise in the jargon of advertising and public relations, c. 1958.
To þe ymage of god he made hym [Genesis i.27, Wycliffite Bible, early version, 1382]
image (v.)
late 14c., "to form a mental picture (of something), imagine," from Old French imagier, from image (see image (n.)). Related: Imaged; imaging.
