Definition

1. Noun:
   • A religious painting: A small, traditional religious painting on wood, typically depicting Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, or saints, and venerated in the Eastern Orthodox Church.
   • A symbol or representation: A person or thing that is widely admired and seen as a symbol of a particular idea, era, or quality.
   • A graphical symbol: In computing, a small picture on a computer screen that represents a program, function, file, or concept, which a user can select and activate.

Examples of Usage

• Noun (Religious painting):

  • The ancient church was filled with beautiful icons.
  • She prayed before the icon of the Virgin Mary.

• Noun (Symbolic person/thing):

  • He became a cultural icon after starring in that famous film.
  • The little black dress is a fashion icon.

• Noun (Computing symbol):

  • Click on the printer icon to start printing your document.
  • Drag the file icon to the trash folder to delete it.

Advanced Usage

• "To be an icon of something": To be the perfect or most famous symbol of a particular thing.
  • The Eiffel Tower is an icon of Paris.
• "Living icon": A person who is extremely famous and influential in a particular field.
  • The designer is considered a living icon in the art world.

Variants and Related Words

• Iconic (adjective): Widely recognized and well-established as a symbol; relating to or of the nature of an icon.
  • The actor's performance in that role was iconic.
• Iconography (noun): The visual images, symbols, or modes of representation collectively associated with a person, cult, or movement.
  • The book studies the iconography of medieval saints.

Synonyms

• Symbol: Something that represents or stands for something else.
• Idol: A person or thing that is greatly admired, loved, or revered.
• Emblem: A heraldic device or symbolic object as a distinctive badge of a nation, organization, or family.
• Representation: The description or portrayal of someone or something in a particular way.

Related Phrases

• Cultural icon: A person or artifact that is recognized by members of a culture as representing some aspect of their cultural identity.
  • The singer is a true cultural icon for her generation.
• Status icon: An object that symbolizes high social or economic status.
  • In the 1980s, a car phone was a status icon.

Related Idioms

• An icon of its time: Something that perfectly represents or symbolizes the era in which it existed.
  • That music album is an icon of its time.

Noun

1. a conventional religious painting in oil on a small wooden panel; venerated in the Eastern Church
2. a visual representation (of an object or scene or person or abstraction) produced on a surface
   • they showed us the pictures of their wedding
   • a movie is a series of images projected so rapidly that the eye integrates them
3. (computer science) a graphic symbol (usually a simple picture) that denotes a program or a command or a data file or a concept in a graphical user interface