icon

Etymology

From Latin īcōn, from Ancient Greek εἰκών (eikṓn, “likeness, image, portrait”). Eastern Orthodox Church sense is attested from 1833. Computing sense first recorded in 1982.

noun

1. An image, symbol, picture, or other representation usually as an object of religious devotion.
2. (religion, especially Eastern Christianity) A type of religious painting portraying a saint or scene from Scripture, often done on wooden panels.
   Last week the Archdiocese sent emmissaries to investigate the icon and decided that the tears were not a hoax, Father Koufos said. 1986-12-22, “‘Weeping Virgin’ Icon Draws Throngs To Chicago”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
3. (by extension) A person or thing that is the best example of a certain profession or some doing.
   That man is an icon in the business; he personifies loyalty and good business sense.
   Only a handful of rock musicians have become genuine icons - larger-than-life symbolic figures whose personal triumphs and vicissitudes seem to mirror the ups and downs of rock as a whole, and sometimes of the society that nurtures it. Often, rock icons become the objects of personality cults that tend to overshadow their musical accomplishments. 1981-05-31, Robert Palmer, “Two Icons of Rock Music”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
   Barbie is viewed as an icon of American culture in her new biography, Barbie: Her Life and Times (Crown, $25), written by Billy Boy, a clothing and jewelry designer in Paris. 1987-12-23, “Barbie: Doll, Icon Or Sexist Symbol?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
4. (graphical user interface) A small picture that represents something.
   Click the loudspeaker icon to configure audio settings.
   The program's most quintessentially Macintoshian feature, one as yet unique among spreadsheets, is its icon bar, which resides at the top of the screen just below the standard menu bar. It contains 21 icons, each of which allows the user to perform a specified function with but a few clicks of the mouse. 1985-09-15, Erik Snadberg-Diment, “Number Crunching on the Macintosh”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
5. (linguistics, semiotics) A word, character, or sign whose form reflects and is determined by the referent; onomatopoeic words are necessarily all icons.