rebus
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
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
A modern-day equivalent would be using a picture of an eye to represent “I” — a linguistic concept called the rebus principle.
From Washington Post • Sep. 30, 2019
Follow Plautus’s famous injunction: modus omnibus in rebus.
From New York Times • Apr. 8, 2016
Linguists term this decisive innovation, which also underlies puns today, the rebus principle.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
