symbolatry

English

Etymology

From symbol +‎ -latry.

Noun

symbolatry (uncountable)

1. The worship of symbols.
   • 1912, The Lutheran Quarterly, volume 42, page 366:

     And then, upon this thoroughly baseless assumption, the critic proceeds to read all of us a lecture upon our sacrilegious symbolatry, and the dreadful abyss into which we are hurrying with fatal velocity.

   • 1968, Mother India: Monthly Review of Culture, volume 20, page 713:

     The soulful intensity of her lamentation can be best understood if we remember that in Hindu symbolatry the blue colour, which goes with the sky and the sea, is attributed to Infinity.