Meanings
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1
noun
Representation of a concept through symbols or underlying meanings of objects or qualities.
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.
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2
noun
An 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.
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3
noun
the practice of investing things with symbolic meaning
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4
noun
a system of symbols and symbolic representations
Thesaurus
Etymology
From symbol + -ism, sense 2 being a semantic loan from French symbolisme.