PRONUNCIATION:

(REE-buhs) 

MEANING:

noun: A representation of a word or phrase using pictures, symbols, letters, etc.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin rebus (by things), from res (thing). Earliest documented use: 1605.

USAGE:

"Daniel Clowes’s narratives are full of anagrams and rebuses, clues (a wand, an eye, a movie camera) to an underlying mystery that is never solved.”
 Tad Friend; Comics from Underground; The New Yorker; Jul 30, 2001.

 See more usage examples of rebus in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary. rebus