Symbolic

adj

adj ·3 syllables ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Pertaining to a symbol.

    "Seeing the British establishment struggle with the financial sector is like watching an alcoholic […]. Until 2008 there was denial over what finance had become. When a series of bank failures made this impossible, there was widespread anger, leading to the public humiliation of symbolic figures."

  2. 2
    Implicitly representing or referring to another thing.

    "a symbolic gesture"

Adjective
  1. 1
    serving as a visible symbol for something abstract wordnet
  2. 2
    relating to or using or proceeding by means of symbols wordnet
  3. 3
    using symbolism wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
abstractallegoricallegoricalanagogicassociationalbetokening

Example

More examples

"Even people who don't believe in the Catholic church venerate the Pope as a symbolic leader."

Etymology

From French symbolique or directly from Latin symbolicus, from Ancient Greek συμβολικός (sumbolikós, “of or belonging to a symbol”), equivalent to symbol + -ic.

Related phrases

Blissard's symbolic methodsound-symbolicsymbolic constantsymbolic expressionsymbolic languagesymbolic linksymbolic logicsymbolic speech

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.