iconic
- 1Famous for being a distinctive, representative example of its type.
The moon landing became an iconic moment of the twentieth century, replayed on television for decades.
Planners considered building a new terminal, but the city wanted to keep its iconic Art Deco hall.
Similaremblematic
Note
A figurative stretch of the image sense: something iconic has become the picture people carry of its whole kind. It gathers around events, views and buildings. J. K. Chambers's Milestones (1983) counts Coltrane's death among those iconic events that stay vividly in the mind, and in 2020 Network Rail's Michael Bryan calls a Victorian bridge an iconic structure, a reason to keep it rather than build anew.
- 2Distinctive and characteristic, serving as a mark of a particular person's or thing's identity.
With its iconic curved grille, the car is recognizable from a block away.
The skater's iconic spin-and-grab is the trick that kids copy at every park.
Similarsignature
Note
Here the word points inward, to what identifies one particular person or thing: a fighter's trademark move, or Superman's costume, which stays instantly recognizable through every shade of blue. Signature is the close synonym, and it makes a handy test: if signature fits, this is the meaning. The "emblematic" meaning points outward instead, to something that stands for a whole type.
- 3Relating to an icon, or having the qualities of one.
Unlike the aniconic stone pillars nearby, the temple's iconic images show each god with a face and limbs.
The artist borrowed the iconic style of Byzantine church painting, with flat gold backgrounds and solemn, frontal faces.
Oppositeaniconic
Note
The literal sense, in English since the 17th century, by way of Late Latin īconicus from Greek eikonikós. Here iconic is about images themselves, such as the painted saints of church art or work made in their manner, and its opposite is aniconic, art or worship that avoids figures. In writing about religious art, make sure the "famous" meaning cannot be read instead.
- 4Standing for or representing something, as a sign does.
Words for animal noises, such as buzz and moo, are iconic, imitating the sounds they name.
The speaker's iconic gestures traced the shape of the spiral staircase as she described it.
Similarimitative, representational
Note
Students of signs use it for meaning carried by resemblance rather than by convention, where the link between sign and meaning must simply be learned. It comes in degrees: Charles William Morris, in Signs, Language, and Behavior (1946), calls a portrait iconic to a considerable extent but not completely, since canvas lacks the texture of skin. The noun is iconicity; among gestures, the contrasting term is batonic.
Practice
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Origin
From Late Latin īconicus, from Ancient Greek εἰκονικός (eikonikós); by surface analysis, it is icon + -ic.