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symbol
has definitions from the field of psychology
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[ noun ] an arbitrary sign (written or printed) that has acquired a conventional significance
Used in print (Chicago Daily Tribune...)His addle-brained knight-errant , self appointed to the ridiculous position in an age when armor had already been relegated to museums and the chivalrous code of knight-errantry had become a joke , is , as Cervantes no_doubt intended , a gaunt but gracious symbol of good , moving soberly and sincerely in a world of cynics , hypocrites and rogues . (Schubert Ogden, Christ Without Myth....)Mythological concepts may by_all_means still be used , but they can be used responsibly only as `` symbols '' or `` ciphers '' , that_is , only if they are also constantly interpreted in non mythological ( or existential ) terms . (Jaroslav Pelikan, The Shape of Death: life, death and...)The biblical symbol for this affirmation is expressed in the words : `` So God created man in his own image ; in the similitude of God he created him '' . (Nathan Rapport, ""I've Been Here before!"...)A `` mental_image '' subconsciously impressing us from beneath its language symbols in wakeful thought , or consciously in light sleep , is actually not an image at_all but is comprised of realities , viewed not in the concurrent sensory stream , but within the depths of the fourth_dimension . Hereby , the external object viewed by the eyes remains the thing that is seen , not the retinal image , the purpose of which would be to achieve perceptive cooperation by stirring sympathetic impulses in the other sensory centers , motor tensions , associated word symbols , and consciousness . |
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[ noun ] (psychology) something visible that by association or convention represents something else that is invisible
Examples "the eagle is a symbol of the United States" Used in print (Tristram P. Coffin, "Folklore in the American Twentieth...)Parson_Weems 's George_Washington became the symbol of honesty and the father image of the uniting States . |
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