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Icon vs Pictogram - What's the difference?

icon | pictogram |

As nouns the difference between icon and pictogram

is that icon is an , symbol, picture, or other representation usually as an object of religious devotion while pictogram is a picture that represents a word or an idea by illustration.

icon

English

(wikipedia icon)

Alternative forms

* eikon, ikon

Noun

(en noun)
  • An image, symbol, picture, or other representation usually as an object of religious devotion.
  • A religious painting, often done on wooden panels.
  • 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.
  • A small picture which represents something (such as an icon on a computer screen which when clicked performs some function.)
  • (linguistics) A type of noun whereby the form reflects and is determined by the referent; onomatopoeic words are necessarily all icons. See also (symbol) and (index).
  • Pictual representations of files, programs and folders on a computer.
  • Derived terms

    * aniconic, aniconism * iconism

    Anagrams

    * * * ----

    pictogram

    Alternative forms

    * pictogramme (rare)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A picture that represents a word or an idea by illustration.
  • Usage notes

    Strictly speaking, a pictogram'' represents by illustration, an ''ideogram'' represents an idea, and a ''logogram'' represents a word: Chinese characters are all logograms, but few are pictograms or ideograms. Casually, ''pictogram is used to represent all of these: it is a picture representing some concept.

    Synonyms

    * pictograph * hieroglyph