1a very typical example of a certain person or thing:he was the archetype of the old-style football club chairman
an original which has been imitated; a prototype:an instrument which was the archetype of the early flute
2 Psychoanalysis (in Jungian theory) a primitive mental image inherited from the earliest human ancestors, and supposed to be present in the collective unconscious.
3a recurrent symbol or motif in literature, art, or mythology:mythological archetypes of good and evil
