symbol vs symptom

symbol

noun
  • A signalling event on a communications channel; a signal that cannot be further divided into meaningful information. 

  • A type of noun whereby the form refers to the same entity independently of the context; a symbol arbitrarily denotes a referent. See also icon and index. 

  • An internal identifier used by a debugger to relate parts of the compiled program to the corresponding names in the source code. 

  • A character or glyph representing an idea, concept or object. 

  • A summary of a dogmatic statement of faith. 

  • The numerical expression which defines a plane's position relative to the assumed axes. 

  • A thing considered the embodiment of a concept or object. 

verb
  • To symbolize. 

symptom

noun
  • A signal; anything that indicates, or is characteristic of, the presence of something else, especially of something undesirable. 

  • A perceived change in some function, sensation or appearance of a person that indicates a disease or disorder, such as fever, headache or rash; strictly, a symptom is felt or experienced by the patient, while a sign can be detected by an observer. 

How often have the words symbol and symptom occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )