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

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

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

From Slate ● Feb. 5, 2018

In the 1960s, she caused a small sensation by introducing the rebus puzzle.

From New York Times ● Jan. 30, 2015

Logograms for abstract words were often derived by 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, the seeker after numerical combinations, the solver of amusing problems, the answerer of charades, rebuses, logogryphs, and such things, was at last in his true element.

From Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon by Jules Verne

Emblems, rebuses, and puns, the delight of the Jesuits, were very fit for that purpose.

From Priests, Women, and Families by Jules Michelet