ICON

icon, ikon

(noun) a conventional religious painting in oil on a small wooden panel; venerated in the Eastern Church

picture, image, icon, ikon

(noun) a visual representation (of an object or scene or person or abstraction) produced on a surface; “they showed us the pictures of their wedding”; “a movie is a series of images projected so rapidly that the eye integrates them”

icon

(noun) (computer science) a graphic symbol (usually a simple picture) that denotes a program or a command or a data file or a concept in a graphical user interface

Source: WordNet® 3.1

Etymology

Noun

icon (plural icons)

An image, symbol, picture, or other representation usually as an object of religious devotion.

Synonyms: idol, graven image (pejorative)

(religion, especially, Eastern Christianity) A type of religious painting portraying a saint or scene from Scripture, often done on wooden panels.

(by extension) A person or thing that is the best example of a certain profession or some doing.

Synonyms: Thesaurus:exemplar, Thesaurus:model

(graphical user interface) A small picture that represents something (such as an icon on a computer screen which when clicked performs some function.)

(linguistics) A word, character, or sign whose form reflects and is determined by the referent; onomatopoeic words are necessarily all icons.

Coordinate terms: symbol, index.