symbolicadj.n.

1681 J. Pleydell Serm. Funeral Glanvil 2 It may be well doubted whether their symbolick divinity were not design'd rather to conceal their own ignorance.

1704 R. Nelson Compan. Festivals & Fasts i. xxviii. 301 The Apostles..laid their Hands upon them; an ancient Symbolick Rite of Investiture and Consecration.

1841–8 F. Myers Catholic Thoughts II. iii. §11. 41 The Old Testament..is Prophetic and Symbolic of the Revelations of the New.

1864 E. B. Pusey Daniel (1876) 411 The symbolic animal.

1871 R. W. Dale Ten Commandm. ii. 58 Jewish priests who offered a mere symbolic sacrifice might properly wear symbolic robes.

1899 W. R. Inge Christian Mysticism vii. 254 All voluntary external acts are symbolic of (that is, vitally connected with) internal states.

1871 J. Earle Philol. Eng. Tongue v. 195 The Symbolic words are those which by themselves present no meaning to the mind, and which depend for their intelligibility on a relation to some presentive word or words.

1656 T. Hobbes Six Lessons iii. 28 in Elements Philos. You demonstrate nothing to any Body, but those who understand your Symbolique tongue.

1669 T. Gale Court of Gentiles: Pt. I i. xi. 64 The Egyptian Language..was twofold, Symbolic and Hieroglyphic, or Simple.

1741 W. Warburton Divine Legation Moses II. iv. iv. 144 Symbolic Writing, the more it receded from the Proper Hieroglyphic, the more it became obscure.

1816 R. Jameson Treat. External Characters Minerals (ed. 2) 179 All this description may be exhibited in symbolic language.

1839 De Morgan in Trans. Cambr. Philos. Soc. 7 173 The method of giving meaning to the primary symbols, and of interpreting all subsequent symbolic results.

1901 F. S. Dellenbaugh N. Amer. of Yesterday 69 In Symbolic Writing, a single characteristic part or trait serves to represent the whole object; thus the track of an animal will stand for the animal itself.

1846 Sir W. R. Hamilton in Cambr. & Dublin Math. Jrnl. I. 49 Calling this act of connection of symbols, the operation of addition; the added symbols, summands; and the resulting symbol, a sum; we may..say..that this symbolic sum of lines represents the total (or final) effect of all those successive rectilinear motions..which are represented by the several summands.

1886 J. C. Fields in Amer. Jrnl. Math. 8 367 (heading) Symbolic Finite Solutions and Solutions by Definite Integrals of the Equation ^dny/ _dxⁿ = x^my.

1888 W. W. Johnson in Amer. Jrnl. Math. 10 94 (heading) Symbolic Treatment of Exact Linear Differential Equations.

1856 A. De Morgan in Trans. Cambr. Philos. Soc. 9 83 I think it reasonably probable that the advance of symbolic logic will lead to a calculus of opposite relations, for mere inference, as general as that of + and − in algebra.

1881 Venn (title) Symbolic Logic.

1903 B. Russell Princ. Math. ii. 10 Symbolic or Formal Logic—I shall use these terms as synonyms—is the study of the various general types of deduction. The word symbolic designates the subject by an accidental characteristic, for the employment of mathematical symbols, here as elsewhere, is merely a theoretically irrelevant convenience.

1903 B. Russell Princ. Math. vi. 74 By symbolic logicians..this will be felt as a reactionary view.

1933 C. A. Mace Princ. Logic iv. 64 The fact that symbolic logicians have not generally recognized this form compels us to introduce a symbol that is not in common use.

1941 O. Helmer tr. A. Tarski Introd. Logic ii. 18 Logic..has undergone a complete transformation with the effect of assuming a character similar to that of the mathematical disciplines; in this new form it is known as mathematical or deductive or symbolic logic.

1958 Times Lit. Suppl. 19 Dec. 729/3 Professor Sparshott quotes the dying symbolic logician—‘complete rigour at last!’

1968 Brit. Med. Bull. 24 239/2 The final study to be reviewed concerns diagnosis by the computer using a combination of symbolic logic..and similarity coefficients.

1973 Sci. Amer. Apr. 101/3 First Frege, then Peano and finally Russell turned to symbolic logic as a potential source of the fundamental notions necessary for a theory of natural number.

1953 IRE Trans. Electronic Computers 2 10/1 Programs for automatic calculators can be written with symbolic addresses instead of actual addresses.

1970 O. Dopping Computers & Data Processing xix. 308 In automatic coding..each data item receives a name, or symbolic address.

1977 Gloss. Terms Data Processing (B.S.I.) vii. 13/1 Symbolic addressing.

1981 M. E. Walsh Understanding Computers iii. 48 This process of using mnemonic instructions..and symbolic addressing and having them translated into machine language is called assembling a program.

1684 G. Mackenzie Instit. Law Scotl. (1694) ii. i. 56 The..most ordinary way of acquiring of Property is by Tradition,..and this translation is made either by the real delivery of the thing it self, as of a Horse, a Cup &c. or by a Symbolick delivery.

1834 T. Carlyle Sartor Resartus iii. iii. 80/2 In Death too, in the Death of the Just, as the last perfection of a Work of Art, may we not discern symbolic meaning?

1855 J. McCosh Method Divine Govt. (ed. 4) iii. i. 264 The Symbolic power, which enables us to represent objects by signs.

1861 R. C. Trench Comm. Epist. 7 Churches Asia 26 What we may call the mystical or symbolic interest..predominates over the actual.

1862 R. C. Trench Notes Miracles (ed. 7) xxxiii. 460 An allegorical, or more truly a symbolic, meaning underlying the literal.

1899 W. R. Inge Christian Mysticism vii. 257 There are two views of this sacrament which the ‘plain man’ has always found much easier to understand than the symbolic view which is that of our Church.

1908 R. H. Strachan in Expositor Feb. 114 Apart from the much larger question of the symbolism of the Gospel, he [sc. John] displays what might be called the ‘symbolic’ mind, a mind that is especially open to any suggestion of spiritual truth conveyed by the actual facts.

1910 B. W. Wells Mod. Fr. Lit. xiii. 485 Here [sc. in ‘La petite paroisse’] first Daudet adopted the symbolic method that Zola and Ibsen also use with such effect.

1937 H. Blumer in E. P. Schmidt Man & Society 153 The group of social psychologists who may be conveniently labelled ‘symbolic interactionists’.

1937 H. Blumer in E. P. Schmidt Man & Society 174 It is clearly an instance of the symbolic interaction.

1937 H. Blumer in E. P. Schmidt Man & Society 191 The stimulus-response approach is interested in reaction; the symbolic interaction view in action.

1961 D. Martindale Nature & Types Sociol. Theory xiv. 339 The symbolic interaction school took shape in America, primarily under the influence of pragmatism.

1967 Sociol. Q. 8 149 (title) On the edge of rapprochement: was Durkheim moving toward the perspective of symbolic interaction?

1969 H. Blumer (title) Symbolic interactionism.

1969 H. Blumer Symbolic Interactionism i. 1 George Herbert Mead who, above all others, laid the foundations of the symbolic interactionist approach.

1972 S. Mennell in C. B. Cox & A. E. Dyson 20th-cent. Mind III. v. 160 Another kind of social action theory has also been influential, especially in the last decade. It is usually known as ‘symbolic interactionism’, and has deep roots in American sociology.

1977 J. A. Kotarba in J. D. Douglas & J. M. Johnson Existential Sociol. ix. 272 The concept of illness as deviant behavior..is built upon the labeling theory of the symbolic interactionist perspective.

1979 Human Relations Sept. 803 Symbolic interaction stresses the personal definition of the situation, while frame analysis seeks to uncover the background assumptions within which interaction takes place.

1982 Jrnl. Learning Disabilities 15 347 Using a symbolic interaction perspective, the study focused on the extent of agreement..in referring children..to a university clinic for psycho~educational assessment.