Symbolic means standing for something larger than itself. A white dove for peace, a black armband for grief, the handing over of a key when a building opens.
It nearly always takes OF: the ring is symbolic of a promise, the empty chair was symbolic of everyone missing. The second use is cooler, and it can be an accusation — a symbolic gesture is one that changes nothing, a symbolic fine of one pound, a symbolic vote the government is free to ignore. So listen for tone; calling a plan symbolic is praise in one mouth and a quiet insult in another. Around it sit symbol, symbolism and symbolise, and mathematics has symbolic logic, logic written in signs instead of words. Do not use symbolic for a thing that merely looks like another thing: the link has to be one that people agree to read.
1adjectivesymbolicStanding for or representing something else.
“The olive branch is symbolic of peace.”
synonyms: emblematic, representative
2adjectivedoneDone for show, with no real effect.
“The cut was symbolic — a pound off a hundred-pound fee.”
3adjectiveusingUsing symbols rather than words or numbers.
“The course covers symbolic logic in the second term.”
Greek symbolikos meant belonging to a symbol, and it passed through Latin symbolicus and French symbolique into English. The shape is symbol plus -ic, the ending that turns a thing into an adjective about that thing.
Ancient Greek
συμβολικός — of or belonging to a symbol
Latin
symbolicus
French
symbolique
English, today
symbolic
From French symbolique or directly from Latin symbolicus, from Ancient Greek συμβολικός (“of or belonging to a symbol”), equivalent to symbol + -ic.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA