Logo turned up in English in 1937, probably a shortening of logogram, meaning a "sign or character representing a word" (1820), derived from Greek logos "word" + gram "what is written." A logogram is a single written character (a glyph) which represents a complete grammatical word or morpheme.
The term logo has several meanings:
- Used synonymously with the word logotype (q.v.), it is a visual device that graphically defines a (usually corporate) identity, incorporating an emblem or symbol, a name, acronym or part of a name often in a unique font, or both, protected by copyright. See under logotype. See also trademark.
- The Logo programming language.
- Symbols of Unicode, used for general purposes
- The skull-and-crossbones poison symbol (Unicode U+2620, ☠)
- The three-bladed radiation symbol (Unicode U+2622, ☢)
- The six-horned biohazard symbol (Unicode U+2623, ☣)
- The 'i' symbol for information points (Unicode U+2139, ℹ)
- The 'male' symbol (Unicode U+2642, ♂)
- The 'female' symbol (Unicode U+2640, ♀)
