symbolize en · VERB
Pronunciation
Etymology
From Middle French symboliser.
Meanings
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(transitive) To be symbolic of; to represent.
The broken chain symbolizes freedom.
Doves often symbolize peace.
The popular late Middle Ages fictional character Robin Hood, dressed in green to symbolize the forest, dodged fines for forest offenses and stole from the rich to give to the poor. But his appeal was painfully real and embodied the struggle over wood.
2006, Edwin Black, chapter 2, in Internal Combustion:
- (intransitive, transitive) To use symbols; to represent ideas symbolically.
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(transitive) To convert something into a symbol.
The overwhelming majority of these poems consists of wedding-songs, intended for the various ceremonies of the wedding and the daily festivities of the first week after the wedding. But these are not wedding-songs in the ordinary sense. In them, the wedding is symbolized. The poet speaks, indeed, of bride and bridegroom. But thereby he in no sense signifies the young human pair, but rather, true to cabbalistic implication, he intends the bridegroom to be God while the bride is the personified people of Israel.
1929, Abraham Zevi Idelsohn, Jewish Music: Its Historical Development, page 365:
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(intransitive, obsolete) To resemble each other in qualities or properties; to correspond; to harmonize.
They both symbolize in this, that they love to look upon themselves through multiplying glasses.
1640, I. H. [i.e., James Howell], ΔΕΝΔΡΟΛΟΓΊΑ [DENDROLOGIA]. Dodona’s Grove, or, The Vocall Forrest, London: […] T[homas] B[adger] for H. Mosley [i.e., Humphrey Moseley] […], →OCLC:The pleasing of colour symbolizeth with the pleasing of any single tone to the ear; but the pleasing of order doth symbolize with harmony.
1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis [Bacon], “(please specify the page, or |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], London: […] William Rawley […]; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […], →OCLC:
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(intransitive, obsolete) To hold the same faith; to agree.
The believers in pretended miracles have always previously symbolized with the performers of them.
1824, George Stanley Faber, The Difficulties of Infidelity:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| symbolizing | Tense=Pres, VerbForm=Part | lexicographic | |
| symbolizes | Number=Sing, Person=3, Tense=Pres | lexicographic | |
| symbolise | UK, alternative | lexicographic | |
| symbolized | Tense=Past, VerbForm=Part | lexicographic | |
| symbolized | Tense=Past | lexicographic |
Deriveds
nonsymbolizing · symbolization · resymbolize · symbolizable · missymbolize · symbolizer
Synonyms
Translations (36)
sv symbolisera (to be symbolic of; to represent) · be сымбалізава́ць (to be symbolic of; to represent) · fr symboliser (to be symbolic of; to represent) · ja 象徴する (to be symbolic of; to represent) · ko 상징하다 (to be symbolic of; to represent) · pl symbolizować (to be symbolic of; to represent) · el συμβολίζω (to be symbolic of; to represent) · cmn 象徵 /象征 (to be symbolic of; to represent) · mt ssimbolizza (to be symbolic of; to represent) · be сімвалізава́ць (to be symbolic of; to represent) · it simbolizzare (to be symbolic of; to represent) · mt ssimboleġġa (to be symbolic of; to represent) · gl simbolizar (to be symbolic of; to represent) · ga siombalaigh (to be symbolic of; to represent) · lt simbolizuoti (to be symbolic of; to represent) · es parabolizar (to be symbolic of; to represent) · da symbolisere (to be symbolic of; to represent) · bg символизи́рам (to be symbolic of; to represent) · uk символізува́ти (to be symbolic of; to represent) · hu jelképez (to be symbolic of; to represent) · hu szimbolizál (to be symbolic of; to represent) · cy symboleiddio (to be symbolic of; to represent) · ru символизи́ровать (to be symbolic of; to represent) · fi symboloida (to be symbolic of; to represent) · sl simbolizirati (to be symbolic of; to represent) · az simvollaşdırmaq (to be symbolic of; to represent) · hu jelez (to be symbolic of; to represent) · pt simbolizar (to be symbolic of; to represent) · nl symboliseren (to be symbolic of; to represent) · ro simboliza (to be symbolic of; to represent) · az rəmziləşdirmək (to be symbolic of; to represent) · eo simboli (to be symbolic of; to represent) · fi merkitä (to be symbolic of; to represent) · es simbolizar (to be symbolic of; to represent) · de symbolisieren (to be symbolic of; to represent) · ca simbolitzar (to be symbolic of; to represent)