doppelgänger
noun
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According to German folklore, all living creatures have an identical, but invisible, spirit double. These second selves are distinct from ghosts, which appear only after death, and are sometimes described as the spiritual opposite or negative of their living counterparts. English speakers borrowed both the concept of the doppelgänger and the German word for it (from doppel-, meaning “double,” and -gänger, meaning “goer”) in the mid-1800s, but today the English word typically has a more quotidian use, referring simply to a living person who closely resembles another living person.
Examples of doppelgänger in a Sentence
Rory Doherty, Vulture, 11 July 2025
Obsessed with one of Joy’s pals essentially being an Emily Mortimer doppelganger.
—Emma Specter, Vogue, 20 June 2025
And then what are the bizarro, doppelganger character defects that accompany those characteristics?
—Outside Online, 28 May 2025
And then there are the cats—dozens of them, prowling or stoic doppelgangers of the real-life felines who roamed Abercrombie’s Hyde Park Victorian.
—Jeremy Lybarger, ARTnews.com, 26 Mar. 2025
In the show, Sarah Manning (Maslany) witnesses the death of doppelganger Beth Childs (also Maslany), and realises they — and all the others — were created via the sinister experiments of Project Leda.
12.
—Richard Edwards, Space.com, 26 Mar. 2025
According to Pike and Diaz, around 10 million people across platforms weighed in, most of whom agreed that Christine was essentially Scherzinger's doppelgänger.
—Tommy Tuberville, Newsweek, 7 Mar. 2025
This is fun sci-fi TV, doing twisty multiverse, evil-doppelgänger stuff really well.
—New Atlas, 6 Mar. 2025
In desperation, Elisabeth conceives, and is viciously destroyed by, her own younger, more bankable doppelgänger.
—Justin Chang, The New Yorker, 3 Mar. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Doppelgänger.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/doppelg%C3%A4nger. Accessed 5 Aug. 2025.
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