simulacrum

The risks would be far greater if the interactions were taking place outside of a clinical setting, or for “re-animation” technologies like griefbots, which offer a simulacrum of speaking to a deceased loved one.

From Slate ● Dec. 18, 2025

It is to his credit that the cathedral is not a simulacrum or facsimile, but a Gothic building, in all its structural reality, even the invisible oak roof truss above the vaults.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 3, 2025

It’s as if they were taken over by a simulacrum, as in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”

From Salon ● Oct. 20, 2024

If Schachtner’s orchestrations lack the confident stroke of the master’s pen, they remain a pleasing simulacrum of his flamboyantly emotional style.

From New York Times ● Jan. 25, 2024

I could make a simulacrum of the draccus, but then what?

From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss

But Rollins remained dismissive of the band, telling the New York Times decades later that he regarded the Stones’ music as a flimsy simulacra of work by Black artists.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 26, 2026

She added, “We’ve reached a saturation point with retail simulacra: Everything is a copy of a copy, and even things that started in Copenhagen are now at Wayfair.”

From Seattle Times ● Sep. 21, 2023

Italian semiotician and author Umberto Eco said as much in his seminal Il costume di casa, or "Faith in Fakes," in which he attempted to unfurl "America's obsession with simulacra and counterfeit reality."

From Salon ● Jul. 10, 2023

Philosopher John Searle made a fairly convincing argument that mere simulacra of understanding language can exist without real comprehension.

From Slate ● Dec. 13, 2022

Therefore the body was carefully interred, sometimes even embalmed, and its weapons and foods, or at all events simulacra of these, were laid beside it.

From The Sea-Kings of Crete by Baikie, James