rebus
/ˈriːbəs
/noun (plural rebuses)
1A puzzle in which words are represented by combinations of pictures and individual letters; for instance, apex might be represented by a picture of an ape followed by a letter X.Similar to doing a rebus or crossword puzzle, it's a drawing of nine dots, and the challenge is to connect them without lifting the pen from the paper....
- Just last week one of the words in the rebus puzzle was a cow plus a banjo minus the letter ‘M.’
- Designs often took the form of pictorial puns and rebuses, or word puzzles.
1.1 historical An ornamental device associated with a person to whose name it punningly alludes.Among the myriad rebuses on the aforementioned double-sided sheet at Windsor, there is an elaborate one on the verso that includes an image of a black yarnwinder....
- For Leonardo, the double meaning of word-images in a rebus, like the deceptive vagaries and elusive nature of vision, must have made him acutely aware of the relativity of perception.
- As layered rebuses of meaning with an exceptional iconographic density, they visually manipulated inherited codes of social value, adroitly invoking both positive and negative contemporary references.
Origin
Early 17th century: from French rébus, from Latin rebus, ablative plural of res 'thing'.
Rhymes
- schoolmistressy
- school mother
- school night
- school of thought
- school pace
- school penny
- school phobia
- school photo
- school photograph
- schoolpoint
- school reader
- school recess
- school reunion
- school rider
- school riding
- schoolrod
- schoolroom
- schoolroomy
- school rule
- school run
- schools broadcast
- schools broadcasting
- school schnapper
- school-scholar
- school section