rebus

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• Received-Pronunciation: rē'bəs
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• Received-Pronunciation: /ˈɹiːbəs/
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• Received-Pronunciation: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
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• General-American: /ˈɹibəs/
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• rhymes with -iːbəs
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• CMU ARPABET: R IY1 B AH0 S Digits mark lexical stress: 1 primary, 2 secondary, 0 unstressed.
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From French rébus (“rebus (puzzle); ambiguity; word used in an oblique sense; unintelligible remark”), or directly from its probable etymon Latin rēbus, the ablative plural of rēs (“object, stuff, thing; issue, matter, subject, topic”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *reh1ís (“goods; wealth”). The connection between the English word and its Latin etymon is unclear. further etymology The following possibilities have been suggested, but according to the Oxford English Dictionary are problematic: * According to the French scholar Gilles Ménage (1613–1692) in Les origines de la langue françoise (The Origins of the French Language, 1650), it is taken from the phrase de rebus quae geruntur (“concerning the things that are taking place”) which was used in 16th-century Picardy as the name for satirical writings on contemporary subjects containing picture-riddles that were composed for an annual carnival. However, the term rebus de Picardie is first attested later than the word rébus, and so could simply refer to rebuses popular in Picardy at the time. * Alternatively, it could be from the phrase nōn verbīs sed rēbus meaning “not by words but by things”, but this “encounters difficulties in the chronology of the senses in French”.

28 source translations are retained for this English entry.

• Armenian: ռեբուս (ṙebus) — arrangement of pictures, etc., representing phrases or words, especially as a word puzzle
• Armenian: նկարահանելուկ (nkarahaneluk) — arrangement of pictures, etc., representing phrases or words, especially as a word puzzle
• Belarusian: рэ́бус (rébus) — arrangement of pictures, etc., representing phrases or words, especially as a word puzzle
• Bulgarian: ре́бус (rébus) — arrangement of pictures, etc., representing phrases or words, especially as a word puzzle
• Catalan: jeroglífic — arrangement of pictures, etc., representing phrases or words, especially as a word puzzle
• Chinese Mandarin: 畫謎 /画谜 (huàmí) — arrangement of pictures, etc., representing phrases or words, especially as a word puzzle
• Czech: rébus — arrangement of pictures, etc., representing phrases or words, especially as a word puzzle
• Danish: rebus — arrangement of pictures, etc., representing phrases or words, especially as a word puzzle
• Dutch: rebus — arrangement of pictures, etc., representing phrases or words, especially as a word puzzle
• Finnish: kuva-arvoitus — arrangement of pictures, etc., representing phrases or words, especially as a word puzzle
• French: rébus — arrangement of pictures, etc., representing phrases or words, especially as a word puzzle
• German: Rebus — arrangement of pictures, etc., representing phrases or words, especially as a word puzzle
• German: Bilderrätsel — arrangement of pictures, etc., representing phrases or words, especially as a word puzzle
• Greek: εικονόγριφος (eikonógrifos) — arrangement of pictures, etc., representing phrases or words, especially as a word puzzle
• Hebrew: רֶבּוּס (rebus) — arrangement of pictures, etc., representing phrases or words, especially as a word puzzle
• Hungarian: képrejtvény — arrangement of pictures, etc., representing phrases or words, especially as a word puzzle
• Italian: rebus — arrangement of pictures, etc., representing phrases or words, especially as a word puzzle
• Japanese: 判じ物 (hanjimono) — arrangement of pictures, etc., representing phrases or words, especially as a word puzzle
• Polish: rebus — arrangement of pictures, etc., representing phrases or words, especially as a word puzzle
• Portuguese: rébus — arrangement of pictures, etc., representing phrases or words, especially as a word puzzle
• Romanian: rebus — arrangement of pictures, etc., representing phrases or words, especially as a word puzzle
• Russian: ре́бус (rébus) — arrangement of pictures, etc., representing phrases or words, especially as a word puzzle
• Serbo-Croatian: ре́бус — arrangement of pictures, etc., representing phrases or words, especially as a word puzzle
• Serbo-Croatian: rébus — arrangement of pictures, etc., representing phrases or words, especially as a word puzzle
• Spanish: jeroglífico — arrangement of pictures, etc., representing phrases or words, especially as a word puzzle
• Swedish: rebus — arrangement of pictures, etc., representing phrases or words, especially as a word puzzle
• Ukrainian: ре́бус (rébus) — arrangement of pictures, etc., representing phrases or words, especially as a word puzzle
• Finnish: kuvakirjoitus — arrangement of pictures on a coat of arms which suggests the name of the person to whom it belongs