iconography

Etymology

It is borrowed from Medieval Latin īconographia,^[2][3][4][5] which the American Heritage Dictionary calls Late Latin,^[6] from Ancient Greek εἰκονογραφία (eikonographía, “sketch, description”),^[2][3][4][6] a word used by Strabo.^[2] The Greek noun is formed from εἰκών (eikṓn, “likeness, image”), the source of icon, and -γραφία (-graphía, “writing”) (see -graphy), from γράφω (gráphō, “to write”).^[4][3][7] Merriam-Webster Unabridged derives it from the verb eikonographein (eikonographéō, “to describe”).^[8] Compare French iconographie, recorded from 1701 in Furetière.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A drawing, plan or pictorial representation: 1628, in the third edition of Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy.^[2][9][7] Dictionary.com dates the word to 1620–30.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The concrete sense "a drawing or plan" lasted only through the 17th century.^[2][9] From 1678, in Phillips's New World of Words, the word meant the description or illustration of a subject by drawings or figures, and a book that does this;^[2][3][8] the Shorter Oxford adds a collection of portraits of one subject.^[9] From this it came to mean the images and symbols of a work of art, a movement or a cult, and the study and interpretation of their meaning, close to iconology.^[9][10][8] Merriam-Webster Unabridged singles out art that shows religious or legendary subjects through conventional images and symbols.^[8] Iconographic is recorded from the mid-19th century and iconographer, an illustrator, from the late 19th.^[9]

Timeline

• 1628 – a drawing or plan (obsolete by 1678).^[2]
• 1678 – the illustration of a subject by drawings or figures; a book of such illustrations.^[2][8] Etymonline dates it to the 1670s.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. The images and symbols used in a work of art, an artistic movement or a cult, and the conventional meanings attached to them: the iconography of medieval saints.^[10][9][8]
2. The study and interpretation of such images; the illustration of a subject by pictures.^[9][8][2]
3. A collection of pictures or portraits of one subject.^[10][9][8]
4. The representation of the subjects of icons or portraits, especially on coins.^[10]
5. (obsolete, 1628–1678) A drawing or plan.^[2][9]

Word family

• iconographer
• iconographic

Related words

• icon
• iconology
• -graphy

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins