a carved idol: an image of a god cut and shaped by hand from wood, stone, or metal to be worshiped
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
This word names an idol by the way it was made. It comes from a root meaning to hew or carve, so it points to something a craftsman cut and shaped with tools, then set up as a god. It is the physical object itself, not the false worship in the abstract.
The word appears almost always in the plural and almost always under judgment. The law commands Israel to smash and burn these images (פֶּסֶל is the closely related singular form); the history books track kings who set them up (Manasseh) and kings who tore them down (Josiah); and the prophets mock them as helpless blocks of wood and stone that a nation trusts and a conqueror hauls away.
It is often paired with a molten image (מַסֵּכָה), the two together covering both ways idols were manufactured: the one carved, the other cast from metal poured into a mold. A single carved image might also be plated with silver or gold, which is why several verses speak of "the carved images of their silver."
names specifically an image that was cut and shaped by hand, not devotion in the abstractDeu 7:25Isa 30:22
Both
both name a made object set up to represent a god and receive worship2Ch 33:22Psa 78:58
Only idol
in modern English "idol" often means anything a person prizes too highly, such as fame or money, losing the sense of a physical crafted object
“graven image”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“carved image”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How pesil differs from similar Hebrew words
פֶּסֶלthe primary word for a single carved image, from the same carving root; this word is its close relative, used almost always in the plural for carved idols together
מַסֵּכָהa molten image cast from poured metal, the counterpart to a carved one; the two are often named together
אֱלִילan idol named for its worthlessness and nothingness rather than for how it was made
גִּלּוּלa contemptuous word for idols that names them by disgust, not by their craftsmanship
pesil in the other biblical languages
εἴδωλονGreek“idol”the Greek word for an idol as a false-god image, the usual counterpart in the Greek Old Testament and New Testament
What scholars say about pesil
The lexica treat פָּסִיל as a byform of פֶּסֶל, both derived from the root פסל "to hew, carve," and gloss it as a carved cultic image. It occurs 23 times, predominantly in the plural, in Deuteronomic law, the Deuteronomistic and Chronicler's history, and the prophets, always in a polemical context. HALOT and BDB note its frequent pairing with מַסֵּכָה (a cast image), the merism covering both fabrication techniques. Dohmen's TDOT article traces the semantic development of the פסל group and the prophetic mockery of manufactured images.
Sources
HALOT, s.v. פָּסִילlexicon
BDB, s.v. פָּסִילlexicon
C. Dohmen, "פֶּסֶל pesel," in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, vol. 12reference