symbolism

What it means

1. countableuncountableRepresentation of a concept through symbols or underlying meanings of objects or qualities.First known use between 1645 and 1655.

   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.

   1911 May, “Insanity and the Art of the Borderland”, in The International Studio, volume 32, number 171, page 32

2. countableuncountableartAn 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.

   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.

   1916, Edwin E. Slosson, Major Prophets of To-Day, Boston

   1 more example

   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.

   1920, C. H. Herford, “Recent tendencies in European poetry”, in Francis Sydney Marvin, editor, Recent Developments in European Thought

3. countableobsoleteuncountableA combining together of parts or ingredients.

In a sentence

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.

1911 May, “Insanity and the Art of the Borderland”, in The International Studio, volume 32, number 171, page 32

Where it comes from

1. Frenchsymbolisme
2. Englishsymbolism

From symbol + -ism, sense 2 being a semantic loan from French symbolisme.

First known use: between 1645 and 1655.