symbolism

Symbolism is the use of one thing to stand for another. A dove for peace, a skull for death, black for mourning.

Literature and art classes are where most people meet the word, and it names both the technique and the meaning found by using it. There is a second, capitalised sense, since Symbolism was a specific movement in French poetry and painting at the end of the nineteenth century. Political writing uses it for gestures with no substance, as in a decision that was pure symbolism. The single item is a symbol, and the adjective is symbolic.