symbol

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈsɪm.bəl/^[1]

Etymology

It is Middle English simbal, symbole, borrowed from Middle French symbole, and directly borrowed from Late Latin symbolum (“creed, token, mark”),^[2][3][4] from Ancient Greek σύμβολον (súmbolon, “token, watchword, sign”),^[2][3][5] literally “that which is thrown together”,^[4] from σύν (sún, “together”) (see syn-) and the stem of βάλλειν (bállein, “to throw”),^[2][3][4] from PIE Proto-Indo-European *gʷelh₁- (“to throw, reach”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

A creed, a formal summary of Christian belief: about 1434 in Barnhart and the mid-15th century in Etymonline,^[2][4] first of the Apostles' Creed.^[6][5]

Semantic evolution

In Greek the sense went from throwing things together to comparing, and so to a token compared with its counterpart to prove it genuine.^[4] About 250 Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, applied it to the baptismal creed, as the outward sign that marked a Christian off from a heathen.^[2][4] Something that stands for something else, especially an object representing something sacred or abstract, is from 1590 in the OED and the 1580s in Etymonline,^[7][4] and the word had non-religious senses by the late 16th century.^[6] A written character or mark standing for something, such as a letter or a sign in mathematics, is from about 1620.^[7][4] Trench notes that 17th-century scholars such as Jeremy Taylor also used it in the Greek sense of a contribution to a common stock, as at a picnic;^[8] the SOED treats this as a separate noun from Latin symbola (early 17th to early 19th century).^[9]

Timeline

• c. 1434 – a creed.^[2]
• 1590 – something that stands for something else.^[7]
• early 17th century – a contribution, a share.^[9]
• c. 1620 – a written character or sign.^[7]
• 1671 – an object representing something sacred.^[7]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. Something that represents something else by association or convention, especially a material object standing for something abstract.
2. A printed or written sign used for an operation, element, quantity or relation, as in mathematics or chemistry.
3. An object, person or idea used in a work of art or literature to stand for something else.
4. (Christianity) A creed.

Word family

• symbolistic
• symbolization
• symbology
• status symbol
• sex symbol
• peace symbol

Related words

• diabolical
• symbolic
• symbolize
• symbolism
• parable
• problem
• emblem
• ballistic

Usage notes

The AHD compares symbol, attribute and emblem, which all mean something associated with and standing for or identifying something else.^[10]

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Trench, Richard Chenevix (1859), A Select Glossary of English Words Used Formerly in Senses Different from Their Present, London: John W. Parker
9. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin