iconomatic
adjUK /ʌɪkɒnəˈmatɪk/
Etymology A clipping of earlier icononomatic, from a modern combination of Ancient Greek εἰκών (eikṓn, “icon, image, likeness”) + ὄνομα (ónoma, “name”) + -ικός (-ikós, “-ic: forming adjectives”).
1
The use of pictographs to represent their sounds, as in English rebuses using an eye to mean I or in Chinese phonetic transcription of foreign terms into characters.
- We have, so far as I am aware, no scientific term to express this manner of phonetic writing, and I propose for it therefore the adjective ikonomatic...1886, Daniel Garrison Brinton, Essays of an Americanist, pages 207–8:
- Iconomatic writing... occupies an intermediate position, standing in some sense in relation to both letter and picture writing.1887 January 22, "Iconomatic Writing", Scientific American, Vol. 56, No. 4, p. 56
- Derived terms
- iconomatically, iconomaticism, iconomatography