[f. SYMBOL sb.1 + -ISM, partly after F. symbolisme, G. (mod. L.) symbolismus.]
I. 1. The practice of representing things by symbols, or of giving a symbolic character to objects or acts; the systematic use of symbols; hence, symbols collectively or generally.
1654. J. Webster, Acad. Examen, 24. Who can be ignorant of the … compendious use of all sorts of Symbolisms, that have but any insight into Algebraick Arithmetick?
1840. Carlyle, Heroes, iv. (1841), 198. ‘You do not believe,’ said Coleridge; ‘you only believe that you believe.’ It is the final scene in all kinds of Worship and Symbolism.
1850. Blackie, Æschylus, I. 327. These volcanic movements in the religious symbolism of early Greece became giants.
1870. Rock, Text. Fabr., Introd. vii. p. cxxxvii. Heraldry grew out of symbolism.
1874. Micklethwaite, Mod. Par. Churches, 6. Durandus himself, the prophet of symbolism, often gives alternative interpretations.
1882. Farrar, Early Chr., II. 273. Every item of the symbolism … is borrowed from ancient prophecy.
b. A symbolic meaning attributed to natural objects or facts.
1835. J. B. Robertson, trans. von Schlegel’s Philos. Hist., Life p. xiv. All the divine symbolism in nature and in man.
1871. Fraser, Life Berkeley, iii. 63. The theory of sense symbolism, which connected Berkeley with the Baconian movement.
c. pl. Symbolical figures. rare.
1876. ‘Ouida,’ Winter City, xiv. 388. To embroider … the loveliest Bacchic symbolisms.
d. The use of symbols in literature or art; spec. the principles or practice of the Symbolists (see next, 2 c).
1866. Contemp. Rev., May, 60. By Symbolism in art, poetic or pictorial, we understand the attempt to suggest higher, wider, purer, or deeper ideas by the use of simpler, humbler, or more familiar thoughts or objects.
1898. R. N. Bain, in Literature, 12 Nov., 453/1. Symbolism is the name given by French critics to that revolt against the dryness and photographic exactness of naturalism, which … is characterized, at its best, by a … somewhat dreamy poetry, and half-naïve, half-mystical attempt to interpret the moods of nature through the medium of human sensations.
2. The use, or a set or system, of written symbols.
1864. Ruskin, in Reader, IV. 678/1. I had … invented a short-hand symbolism for crystalline forms.
1868. Chambers’s Encycl., X. 289/1. There are two principles employed in [writing],… Ideographism and Phonetism. An ideograph is either a picture of the object … or … sone symbol which stands … for the object, in which case it is called Symbolism.
3. = SYMBOLICS 2.
1846. Worcester, Symbolism, an exposition or comparison of symbols or creeds. Robertson.
1907. C. G. McCrie, Confessions Ch. Scot., i. 1. Symbolism is that branch of theology which stands between the Biblical … and the Dogmatic or Systematic.
† II. 4. See quots. and cf. SYMBOLIZATION 1 a. Obs. rare–0.
1721. Quincy, Lex. Physico-Med. (ed. 2), Symbole, and Symbolism, is said either of the Fitness of Parts with one another, or of the Consent between them by the Intermediation of Nerves, and the like.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., Symbolism, a word used by some of the chemical writers to express a consent of parts.
