rebus

The effect of these lines, which reach back into the past while projecting far into the future, is that of a rebus, with the stunning phrase “the final whereabouts” offering one more breath of indirection.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 22, 2022

It reminds me of a surrealist painting, or a rebus puzzle.

From Slate ● Aug. 6, 2021

Today the rebus is a convention of the crossword.

From Washington Post ● Jan. 31, 2015

In the 1960s, she caused a small sensation by introducing the rebus puzzle.

From New York Times ● Jan. 30, 2015

Logograms for abstract words were often derived by the rebus principle.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond

I grew up doing crosswords, riddles and rebuses.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2025

Photograph: Universal Images Group/Getty Images In essence, Griffiths had to crack an elaborate Tudor code of rebuses, ciphers, heraldic motifs and symbolic flowers to discover who the man was.

From The Guardian ● May 19, 2015

More complex rebuses are pictures whose elements, correctly named and put together, make up words or sentences.

From Time Magazine Archive

But she could not guide a husband who needed a bridle rein, neither could she decipher rebuses.

From The Maid of Honour, Vol. 1 (of 3) A Tale of the Dark Days of France by Lewis Wingfield

John Hopkins was a peaceful citizen, who worked at rebuses of nights in a flat, but he was not without the fundamental spirit of resistance that comes with the battle-rage.

From The Voice of the City: Further Stories of the Four Million by O. Henry