symbolism
/ˈsɪmbəˌlɪzəm/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.46 in modern English
18
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
4
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Representation of a concept through symbols or underlying meanings of objects or qualities.
Countable; Uncountable
noun
An art movement originating in late 19th-century France and Belgium, seeking to represent absolute truths symbolically through language and metaphorical images, mainly as a reaction against naturalism and realism.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "The undeveloped or mysterically confused thought which exists in savages is fully exemplified in the childish or crazy atavistic anthropomorphism and symbolism so prevalent among degenerates."
- "The cross-fertilization of Elizabethan drama with French symbolism gave rise to the "Princess Maleine", a new species if there ever was one, Shakespearean in form and incident, most un-Shakespearean in everything else."
- "The rise of French symbolism towards the end of the 'seventies was a symptom of a changed temper of thought and feeling traceable in some degree throughout civilized Europe. Roughly, it marked the passing of the confident and rather superficial security of the 'fifties into a vague unrest, a kind of troubled awe."