Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Icon   /ˈaɪkɑn/   Listen
noun
icon  n.  (Also spelled ikon)  
1.
An image or representation; a portrait or pretended portrait. "Netherlands whose names and icons are published."
2.
(Gr. Ch.) A sacred picture representing the Virgin Mary, Christ, a saint, or a martyr, and having the same function as an image of such a person in the Latin Church. The term is used especially for a highly stylized and conventionalized representation of a holy person, rich in symbolism and used in devotional services in many of the eastern Orthodox churches, especially the Greek and Russian Orthodox Churches.
3.
A symbol, especially a symbol whose form suggests its meaning or the object it represents.
4.
(Computers) A graphical symbol for a data object whose form suggests the nature or function of the object; especially, such a symbol as viewed on the computer screen. Note: In a graphical user interface, pointing to and clicking on an icon may cause any of several types of actions, such as opening a file or executing a program, depending on how the icon properties are defined.
5.
Any object of uncritical devotion. "The former congresswoman and Vice-Presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro is still an icon to many party members."
6.
An outstanding example of something which has come to represent the class of things to which it belongs; a paragon; used of persons as well as objects.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Icon" Quotes from Famous Books



... copies of the Gospels, and read aloud to a sacristan this passage and that, asking him to read them also, so that I might adjust my pronunciation to his. On one occasion, from a height near Government House, I watched, if I may so express myself, a celebrated icon in action—a jeweled portrait of the Madonna, said to have been painted by St. Luke. On the plain below was the broad bed of a river, dry from continued drought. Unanswered prayers for rain had for some time been frequent and at last this miraculous relic had been brought forth ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock

... supper of cold hash, and at nine the high striped feather-bed received their rotund little bodies in its soft embrace, and a calm, untroubled sleep soon descended upon their eyelids. Everything in the little house became hushed; the little lamp before the icon glowed and glimmered, the funny innocent little pair slept the sound sleep of the just, amidst the fragrant scent of musk and the ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev



Copyright © 2025 Dictionary One.com