Homophones

• cymbal

Noun

Singular symbol

Plural symbols

symbol (plural symbols)

1. A character or glyph representing an idea, concept or object.

   $ is the symbol for dollars in the US and some other countries.

   '#' is the hash symbol.

   Chinese people use symbols for writing.

2. Any object, typically material, which is meant to represent another (usually abstract) even if there is no meaningful relationship.

   The dollar symbol has no relationship to the concept of currency or any related idea.

3. (linguistics) A type of noun whereby the form refers to the same entity independently of the context; a symbol arbitrarily denotes a referent. See also icon and index.
4. A summary of a dogmatic statement of faith.

   The Apostles, Nicene Creed and the confessional books of Protestantism, such as the Augsburg Confession of Lutheranism are considered symbols.

Derived terms

• status symbol
• typographical symbol

Related terms

• symbolic
• symbolize
• symbolism

A symbol is something such as an object, picture, written word, sound, or particular mark that represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On maps, crossed sabres may indicate a battlefield. Numerals are symbols for numbers. All language consists of symbols. The word "cat" is not a cat, but is an arbitrary symbol representing the idea of a cat.

Psychology has found that people, and even animals, can respond to symbols as if they were the objects they represent. Pavlov's dogs salivated when they heard a sound which they associated with food, even if there was no food. Common psychological symbols include a gun to represent a penis or a tunnel to represent a vagina. See: phallic symbol and yonic symbol.

The psychologist, Carl Jung, who studied archetypes, proposed an alternative definition of symbol, distinguishing it from the term "sign". In Jung's view, a sign stands for something known, as a word stands for its referent. He contrasted this with symbol, which he used to stand for something that is unknown and that cannot be made clear or precise. An example of a symbol in this sense is Christ as a symbol of the archetype called "self".

Signs and symbols

Some writers distinguish between a sign and a symbol. In this case, a sign is purely formal, having no resemblence to the object it represents, while a symbol suggests or resembles the object it represents. When this distinction is made, the word "cat" is a sign but the crossed sabers indicating a battlefield on a map are a symbol.