iconomatic
English
editAlternative forms
editEtymology
editA 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
edit- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ʌɪkɒnəˈmatɪk/
Adjective
editiconomatic (not comparable)
- 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
editReferences
edit- “iconomatic, adj.”, in OED Online , Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 2023.