archetype

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. An original model or type after which other similar things are patterned; a prototype: "'Frankenstein' . . . 'Dracula' . . . 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' . . . the archetypes that have influenced all subsequent horror stories” ( New York Times).
2. n. An ideal example of a type; quintessence: an archetype of the successful entrepreneur.
3. n. In Jungian psychology, an inherited pattern of thought or symbolic imagery derived from the past collective experience and present in the individual unconscious.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A model or first form; the original pattern or model after which a thing is made; especially, a Platonic idea, or immaterial preëxisting exemplar of a natural form.
2. n. In coining, the standard weight by which others are adjusted: now called the prototype.
3. n. In comparative anatomy, a primitive generalized plan of structure assumed to have been subsequently modified or lost by differentiation and specialization: as, the vertebrate archetype.
4. n. The original form from which a class of related forms in plants or animals may be supposed to have descended.

Wiktionary

1. n. An original model of which all other similar persons, objects, or concepts are merely derivative, copied, patterned, or emulated; a prototype
2. n. A person, story, concept, or object that is based on a known archetype; an archetypal character.
3. n. An ideal example of something; a quintessence.
4. n. According to the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, a universal pattern of thought, present in an individual's unconscious, inherited from the past collective experience of humanity.
5. v. To depict as, model using or otherwise associate a subject or object with an archetype.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The original pattern or model of a work; or the model from which a thing is made or formed.
2. n. The standard weight or coin by which others are adjusted.
3. n. The plan or fundamental structure on which a natural group of animals or plants or their systems of organs are assumed to have been constructed.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. something that serves as a model or a basis for making copies