icon
noun
[ ˈʌɪkɒn ]
• a devotional painting of Christ or another holy figure, typically executed on wood and used ceremonially in the Byzantine and other Eastern Churches.
• a person or thing regarded as a representative symbol or as worthy of veneration.
• "this iron-jawed icon of American manhood"
• a symbol or graphic representation on a screen of a program, option, or window.
• a sign which has a characteristic in common with the thing it signifies, for example the word snarl pronounced in a snarling way.
Origin:
mid 16th century (in the sense ‘simile’): via Latin from Greek eikōn ‘likeness, image’. Current senses date from the mid 19th century onwards.
