Noun

(en noun)

A character or glyph representing an idea, concept or object.

$ is the symbol for dollars in the US and some other countries.

'

' is the octothorpe symbol .

''Chinese people use word symbols for writing.

The lion is the symbol''' of courage; the lamb is the '''symbol of meekness or patience.

Any object, typically material, which is meant to represent another (usually abstract) even if there is no meaningful relationship.

The dollar symbol has no relationship to the concept of currency or any related idea.

(linguistics) A type of noun whereby the form refers to the same entity independently of the context; a symbol arbitrarily denotes a referent. See also icon and index.

A summary of a dogmatic statement of faith.

The Apostles, Nicene Creed and the confessional books of Protestantism, such as the Augsburg Confession of Lutheranism are considered symbols .

Visible traces or impressions, made using a writing device or tool, that are connected together and/or are slightly separated. Sometimes symbols represent objects or events that occupy space or things that are not physical and do not occupy space.

(crystallography) The numerical expression which defines a plane's position relative to the assumed axes.

That which is thrown into a common fund; hence, an appointed or accustomed duty.

* Jeremy Taylor

They do their work in the days of peace and come to pay their symbol in a war or in a plague.

Share; allotment.

* Jeremy Taylor

The persons who are to be judged shall all appear to receive their symbol .

Noun

(uncountable) The quality of being different.

(countable) A characteristic of something that makes it different from something else.

* {{quote-magazine, title=Towards the end of poverty

, date=2013-06-01, volume=407, issue=8838, page=11, magazine=(The Economist) citation , passage=But poverty’s scourge is fiercest below $1.25 (the average of the 15 poorest countries’ own poverty lines, measured in 2005 dollars and adjusted for differences in purchasing power): people below that level live lives that are poor, nasty, brutish and short.}}

(countable) A disagreement or argument.

We have our little differences , but we are firm friends.

* Shakespeare

What was the difference ? It was a contention in public.

* T. Ellwood

Away therefore went I with the constable, leaving the old warden and the young constable to compose their difference as they could.

(countable, uncountable) Significant change in or effect on a situation or state.

* 1908 , (Kenneth Grahame), (The Wind in the Willows)

The line of the horizon was clear and hard against the sky, and in one particular quarter it showed black against a silvery climbing phosphorescence that grew and grew. At last, over the rim of the waiting earth the moon lifted with slow majesty till it swung clear of the horizon and rode off, free of moorings; and once more they began to see surfaces—meadows wide-spread, and quiet gardens, and the river itself from bank to bank, all softly disclosed, all washed clean of mystery and terror, all radiant again as by day, but with a difference that was tremendous.

(countable) The result of a subtraction; sometimes the absolute value of this result.

(obsolete) Choice; preference.

* Spenser

That now be chooseth with vile difference / To be a beast, and lack intelligence.

(heraldry) An addition to a coat of arms to distinguish two people's bearings which would otherwise be the same. See augmentation and cadency.

(logic) The quality or attribute which is added to those of the genus to constitute a species; a differentia.

(logic circuits) A Boolean operation which is TRUE when the two input variables are different but is otherwise FALSE; the XOR operation ($\backslash scriptstyle\; A\; \backslash overline\; B\; +\; \backslash overline\; A\; B$).

(relational algebra) the set of elements that are in one set but not another ($\backslash scriptstyle\; A\; \backslash overline\; B$).