symbolism

Etymology

It is formed from English symbol + -ism,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} partly after French symbolisme and New Latin symbolismus as used in German.^[2] In its use for the French literary movement it was taken from symbolisme itself, from symbole.^[7][3] symbol itself is from Late Latin symbolum (“creed, token, mark”),^[3][1] from Ancient Greek σύμβολον (súmbolon, “token, sign, watchword”),^[3][1] from συμβάλλω (sumbállō, “to throw together”);^[1] Etymonline explains the Greek noun as literally "that which is thrown together".^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The practice of representing things by symbols, or of giving a symbolic character to objects and acts: 1653, in J. Webster's Academiarum Examen.^[2] Merriam-Webster dates the first known use to 1654^[4] and Etymonline to the 1650s,^[3] while the Shorter Oxford dates the word to the late 16th century.^[6]

Semantic evolution

From the general practice of using symbols the word spread in the 19th century: from 1835 it meant the symbolic meaning given to natural objects or facts,^[2] from 1864, in Ruskin, a set or system of written symbols.^[2] The use of symbols in literature and art followed in 1866.^[2][3] It was applied to a movement in French literature by 1892,^[3] following symboliste, which Paul Verlaine had used in this sense in 1885 for poets who expressed ideas and feelings through indirect suggestion.^[3] An early, now obsolete sense, recorded only between 1722 and 1753, first in Quincy's medical lexicon, had to do with consent or agreement.^[2]

Timeline

• 1653 – the practice of representing things by symbols.^[2]
• 1835 – a symbolic meaning attributed to natural objects.^[2]
• 1864 – a set or system of written symbols.^[2]
• 1866 – the use of symbols in literature or art.^[2][3]
• 1876 – plural, symbolic figures (rare).^[2]
• 1892 – a movement in French literature.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. The use of symbols to represent ideas, qualities or things, or the giving of a symbolic meaning to objects and acts: the religious symbolism of the painting.^[8][4][2]
2. A system of symbols, or symbols taken together.^[8][2]
3. The symbolic meaning or quality of something.^[8][2]
4. (often capitalized) A late-19th-century movement in art and literature, begun by French poets, that sought to express ideas, feelings and mystical experience through symbols rather than direct description.^[8][7][2]

Word family

• sound symbolism

Related words

• symbolic
• symbolist
• symbolize
• symbol

References

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