Definition of "rebus" [re•bus]

• A representation of words in the form of pictures or symbols, often presented as a puzzle. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "A secret society manipulating the course of history so that matters would come out right would not, in rebus ipses, be thought a thing worth fighting by a skiffy reader."
• "Gero Pius Caputsapiens (Germanice Weishaupt), persona in rebus"
• "In the case of _Quetzalcoatl_ or CUKULCAN, the rebus was the means of getting the name; and if the names of this divinity had not been equivalent in the two tongues, our results would have led us to the"