— symbolistic , adj. — symbolistically , adv.
/sim"beuh list/ , n.
1. a person who uses symbols or symbolism.
2. a person versed in the study or interpretation of symbols.
3. Literature.
a. a writer who seeks to express or evoke emotions, ideas, etc., by stressing the symbolic value of language, to which is ascribed a capacity for communicating otherwise inexpressible visions of reality.
b. ( usually cap. ) a member of a group of chiefly French and Belgian poets of the latter part of the 19th century who sought to evoke aesthetic emotions by emphasizing the associative character of verbal, often private, images or by using synesthetic devices, as vowel sounds, presumably evocative of color.
4. Fine Arts.
a. an artist who seeks to symbolize or suggest ideas or emotions by the objects represented, the colors used, etc.
b. ( usually cap. ) a member of a group of late 19th-century artists who rejected realism and sought to express subjective visions rather than objective reality through the use of evocative images.
5. ( often cap. ) Eccles. a person who rejects the doctrine of transubstantiation and views the Eucharist symbolically.
6. a person who favors the use of symbols in religious services.
adj.
7. of or pertaining to symbolists or symbolism.
[ 1575-85; SYMBOL + -IST ]