ideograph
1
9.9
- noun
- /ˈaɪdiəˌɡræf/
- Specialized
:
ideograma
- Literacy in China is defined as the ability to read and write fifteen hundred to two thousand ideographs or Chinese characters.
- Chinese ideographs
Examples
-
These are Predynastic ideographs.
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Next to the crane were the ideographs for "long life" in hastily applied brushstrokes.
Fiction book (1991) -
I moved my thumb across the ideographs of the cup.
Fiction book (1991) -
Besides the electronic components, were the ideographs painted on the walls?
Fiction book (1992) -
However, many of the symbols seem to be contextually determined, so that in one place an ideograph will mean one thing, while in another place the meaning is completely unrelated.
Fiction book (1992) -
Probably a substantial number of persons classified as literate might be regarded more properly as semiliterate, knowing enough ideographs to read simple texts and write a brief message or letter.
Academic text (1991) -
College specialists and community experts will be connected to the classrooms via modems and will serve as resource personnel for the children as they explore the origin and meaning of the words, stories, and histories surrounding the letters of the alphabet or the ideographs.
Academic text (1991) -
Other types of character include ideographs, which can represent concrete objects and events as well as abstract ideas, and logographs, which are similar to ideographs but are related more to the sound rather than the meaning of a character (Nth, 1990).
Academic text (2013) -
The teacup, a childhood gift from a potter, shatters, and the pencils scatter, arranging themselves into muddled ideographs.
Fiction book (1996) -
Literacy in China is defined as the ability to read and write fifteen hundred to two thousand ideographs or Chinese characters.
Synonyms
4
8.1
A simple picture that stands for a word or idea
3
4.4
A simple picture that shows a word, idea or object on signs and maps
2
8.6
A written symbol that shows a whole idea or thing, not the word's sound
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
Ideograph comes from two parts: ideo- meaning 'idea' and -graph meaning 'to write', the same -graph you see in autograph or photograph. So an ideograph is a written sign that shows an idea or thing directly, which is why the word means a symbol that stands for a thought or thing.