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

Slogans, drawings, GIFs, inspirational sentiments, little rebus puzzles—it’s really up to you.

From Slate ● Feb. 5, 2018

Mrs. Gordon was credited with pioneering and popularizing the use of the rebus, in which a character represents a word or part of a word.

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

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

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

He invented hoaxes, composed rebuses, tried to engage in polemics, and even intended, in spite of the situation of the premises, to get up concerts.

From Sentimental Education Vol 1 by Gustave Flaubert

The deciphering of rebuses, the solution of small problems of strictly definite scope, are occupations which attract many able minds.

From Introduction to the Study of History by George Godfrey Berry