symbolize

Verb

symbolize (third-person singular simple present symbolizes, present participle symbolizing, simple past and past participle symbolized)

1. (transitive) To be symbolic of; to represent.
   • Doves often symbolize peace.
   • The broken chain symbolizes freedom.
2. (intransitive, transitive) To use symbols; to represent ideas symbolically.
3. (transitive) To convert something into a symbol.
   • The overwhelming majority of these poems consists of wedding-songs, intended for the various ceremonies of the wedding and the daily festivities of the first week after the wedding. But these are not wedding-songs in the ordinary sense. In them, the wedding is symbolized. The poet speaks, indeed...1929, Abraham Zevi Idelsohn, Jewish Music: Its Historical Development, page 365
4. (intransitive, obsolete) To resemble each other in qualities or properties; to correspond; to harmonize.
   • The pleasing of colour symbolizeth with the pleasing of any single tone to the ear; but the pleasing of order doth symbolize with harmony.1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis [Bacon], “(please specify the page, or |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], London: […] William Rawley […]; [p]rinted...
   • They both symbolize in this, that they love to look upon themselves through multiplying glasses.1640, I. H. [i.e., James Howell], ΔΕΝΔΡΟΛΟΓΊΑ [DENDROLOGIA]. Dodona’s Grove, or, The Vocall Forrest, London: […] T[homas] B[adger] for H. Mosley [i.e., Humphrey Moseley] […], →OCLC
5. (intransitive, obsolete) To hold the same faith; to agree.
   • The believers in pretended miracles have always previously symbolized with the performers of them.1824, George Stanley Faber, The Difficulties of Infidelity