icon
/ˈaɪ.kɑn/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: 4.16 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
2
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
An image, symbol, picture, portrait, or other representation, usually as an object of religious devotion.
noun
A type of religious painting portraying a saint or scene from Scripture, often done on wooden panels.
noun
A person or thing that is the best example of a certain profession or some doing.
noun
A small picture that represents something.
noun
A word, character, or sign whose form reflects and is determined by the referent; onomatopoeic words are necessarily all icons.
Example Sentences
- "Last week the Archdiocese sent emmissaries to investigate the icon and decided that the tears were not a hoax, Father Koufos said."
- "That man is an icon in the business; he personifies loyalty and good business sense."
- "Only a handful of rock musicians have become genuine icons - larger-than-life symbolic figures whose personal triumphs and vicissitudes seem to mirror the ups and downs of rock as a whole, and sometimes of the society that nurtures it. Often, rock icons become the objects of personality cults that tend to overshadow their musical accomplishments."
- "Barbie is viewed as an icon of American culture in her new biography, Barbie: Her Life and Times (Crown, $25), written by Billy Boy, a clothing and jewelry designer in Paris."
- "Click the loudspeaker icon to configure audio settings."
- "The program's most quintessentially Macintoshian feature, one as yet unique among spreadsheets, is its icon bar, which resides at the top of the screen just below the standard menu bar. It contains 21 icons, each of which allows the user to perform a specified function with but a few clicks of the mouse."
Etymology
Origin
- Source language: Latin
Word Breakdown
- Root: īcōn, εἰκών
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈaɪ.kɑn/
- British English: /ˈaɪ.kɒn/