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logo (n.)"simple symbol or graphic meant to represent something," 1937, probably a shortening of logogram "sign or character representing a word."
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logogram (n.)"word-sign, sign or character representing a word," 1840, from logo- "word" + -gram. Generically, "any symbol representing graphically a product, idea, etc.," from 1966. The earliest use of the word (1820) is in the sense "logograph," but OED explains this as a substitute for logograph, "which in this sense is itself a mistake for logogriph," the old type of word-puzzle.
Related entries & more logograph (n.)"instrument for giving a graphic representation of speech, word-writer," 1879, from logo- "word" + -graph "instrument for recording; something written." Earliest use (1797) is in the sense "logogriph," and it frequently was used in place of that word (see logogriph). In ancient Greek, logographos was "prose-writer, chronicler, speech-writer." Related: Logographic.
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Related entries & more "system of government in which words are the ruling powers," 1804; see logo- + -cracy "rule or government by." Popularized by Washington Irving.
In this country [America] every man adopts some particular slang-whanger as the standard of his judgment, and reads everything he writes, if he reads nothing else: which is doubtless the reason why the people of this logocracy are so marvellously enlightened. [Irving, "Salmagundi," 1821]
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