Ideogrammatical

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Relating to or expressed through ideograms, a form of writing in which characters represent ideas or things rather than sounds
2. Pertaining to a writing system composed of ideograms, where each symbol denotes a concept or object directly
3. Of or involving ideograms, symbols that convey meaning through pictorial or conceptual representation rather than phonetic values

Etymology: "Ideogrammatical" is built from "ideogram", "-atic" and "-al", so its history is that of its parts rather than a single surprising episode. An ideogram is a symbol that represents an idea or concept directly rather than a spoken sound, and the adjective describes things relating to that kind of writing. The base word "ideogram" combines the Greek "idea", meaning a form or notion, with "gramma", meaning something written. The suffix "-atic" turns that noun into an adjective meaning having the character of or relating to, and "-al" adds a further adjectival layer, so the word describes what is connected with ideograms. The word's main use is in discussions of writing systems, such as Chinese characters, where a single sign conveys a meaning rather than a sound. Because the term is a technical coinage built from familiar parts, its meaning is transparent to anyone who knows the root words.

Synonyms: ideogrammic, ideographic