Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Representing ideas directly, and not through the medium of their names: applied specifically to that mode of writing which, by means of symbols, figures, or hieroglyphics, suggests the idea of an object without expressing its name.
  • In phonetics, pertaining to or composed of ideograms.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Of or pertaining to an ideogram; representing ideas by symbols, independently of sounds.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Pertaining to an ideograph or ideography.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective of or relating to or consisting of ideograms

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The symbolical, or tropical (by Bunsen termed ideographic), substituted one object for another, to which it bore an analogy, as heaven and a star expressed night; a leg in a trap, deceit; two arms stretched towards heaven expressed the word offering; a censer with some grains of incense, adoration; a bee was made to signify Lower

    Museum of Antiquity A Description of Ancient Life

  • Historical and interpretive studies were treated as "ideographic" or anecdotal -- not well suited to discovering important social regularities.

    Archive 2008-07-01 Daniel Little 2008

  • Historical and interpretive studies were treated as "ideographic" or anecdotal -- not well suited to discovering important social regularities.

    Discipline, method, hegemony in sociology Daniel Little 2008

  • Wilkins '“real character” is a kind of ideographic script, constructed on completely rational principles, and hence maximally systematic.

    STUDY OF LANGUAGE ALVAR ELLEG 1968

  • The main difficulty in the reading of Babylonian and Assyrian proper names arises from the preference given to the "ideographic" method of writing them.

    Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" Various

  • Sumerian signs of the terms in question and were added as a guide for the reader, proper names more particularly continued to be written to a large extent in purely "ideographic" fashion.

    Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" Various

  • It is generally admitted that all the literature of Babylonia, including the oldest and even that written in the "ideographic" style, whether we term it "Sumero-Akkadian" or "hieratic," is the work of the

    The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria Morris Jastrow 1891

  • The element _An_ is the same that we have in _Anu_, and is the 'ideographic' [704] form for 'high' and 'heaven.'

    The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria Morris Jastrow 1891

  • While it seeks to explain the syllabic values of the signs on the general principle that they represent elements of Babylonian words, truncated in this fashion in order to answer to the growing need for phonetic writing of words for which no ideographs existed, it is difficult to imagine, as Halévy's theory demands, that the "ideographic" style, as found chiefly in religious texts, is the deliberate invention of priests in their desire to produce a method of conveying their ideas that would be regarded as a mystery by the laity, and be successfully concealed from the latter.

    The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria Morris Jastrow 1891

  • 'ideographic' composition being accompanied by a phonetic transliteration.

    The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria Morris Jastrow 1891

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