iconomatic

English

Alternative forms

• ikonomatic

Etymology

A clipping of earlier icononomatic, from a modern combination of Ancient Greek εἰκών (eikṓn, “icon, image, likeness”) + ὄνομα (ónoma, “name”) + -ικός (-ikós, “-ic: forming adjectives”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ʌɪkɒnəˈmatɪk/

Adjective

iconomatic (not comparable)

1. The use of pictographs to represent their sounds, as in English rebuses using an eye to mean I or in Chinese phonetic transcription of foreign terms into characters.
   • 1886, Daniel Garrison Brinton, Essays of an Americanist, pages 207–8:

     We have, so far as I am aware, no scientific term to express this manner of phonetic writing, and I propose for it therefore the adjective ikonomatic...

   • 1887 January 22, "Iconomatic Writing", Scientific American, Vol. 56, No. 4, p. 56:

     Iconomatic writing... occupies an intermediate position, standing in some sense in relation to both letter and picture writing.

Derived terms

• iconomatically
• iconomaticism
• iconomatography

 

References

• “iconomatic, adj.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 2023.