symbol
A character or glyph representing an idea, concept or object.
Example
“"$" is the symbol for dollars in the US and some other countries.”
Other meanings
A thing considered the embodiment or cardinal exemplar of a concept, theme, or other thing.
“The lion is the symbol of courage; the lamb is the symbol of meekness or patience.”
A type of noun whereby the form refers to the same entity independently of the context; a symbol arbitrarily denotes a referent. See also icon and index.
Related words
- Blissymbols
- strephosymbolia
- symbolomania
- status symbol
- anarchy symbol
- at symbol
- biohazard symbol
- Cambrian symbol
- chemical symbol
- Christoffel symbol
- compound symbol
- copyleft symbol
Example sentences
Word history
From Ancient Greek "σύμβολον".
Where this comes from
This definition is adapted from “symbol” on Wiktionary, by its contributors; example sentences are from Tatoeba, credited to their authors above, published under CC BY-SA 4.0. This page is published under the same licence.