Entertainment / Literature / Private Symbol: In contrast with an archetype (universal symbol), a private symbol is one that an individual artist arbitrarily assigns a personal meaning to. Nearly all members of an ethnic, religious, or linguistic group might share a cultural symbol and agree upon its meaning with little discussion, but private symbols may only be discernable in the context of one specific story or poem. Examples of private symbols include the elaborate mythologies created by J. R. R. Tolkien in The Silmarillion (such as the One Ring as a symbol of power lust) or William Butler Yeats' use of Constantinople as a symbol to represent poetic artifice in 'Sailing to Byzantium,' or Yeats' use of a gyre to symbolize the cycles of history and the sphinx as an emblem of the Antichrist in 'The Second Coming.' See also token and emblem.
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Private Noun Synonyms: (top) secret, confidential, undisclosed, hidden, clandestine, concealed, covert, surreptitious, off the record, not for publication, unofficial, hush-hush
Private Adjective Synonyms: personal, individual, own, intimate, particular
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Symbol Adjective Synonyms: representation, figure, metaphor, allegory, insigne (singular, plural is insignia), token, sign, emblem, badge, image, logotype, mark, trade mark, colophon, brand, code, abbreviation, phonogram, initialism, cryptogram, acronym, monogram, password, shibbol
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Entertainment / Literature / Personal Symbol: Another term for a private symbol. See below. MORE
Entertainment / Golf / Semi-Private Course: A course that has members but is also open to public play MORE
Entertainment / Literature / Sound Symbolism: Often, several words with similar meaning may coincidentally have a similar phoneme- combination in them. Because this particular sound occurs in this pattern of words, the sound itself may become str MORE