Chemical element meaning "no life") for "nitrogen". For purposes of international communication and trade, the official names of the chemical elements both ancient and more recently recognized are decided by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), which has decided on a sort of international English language, drawing on traditional English names even when an element's chemical symbol is based on a Latin or other traditional word, for example adopting "gold" rather than "aurum" as the name for the 79th element (Au). IUPAC prefers the British spellings "aluminium" and "caesium" over the U.S. spellings "aluminum" and "cesium", and the U.S.
Symbol Hence, "outward sign" of something. The meaning "something which stands for something else" was first recorded in 1590, in Edmund Spenser's "Faerie Queene". In considering the effect of a symbol on the psyche, in his seminal essay "The Symbol without Meaning" Joseph Campbell proposes the following definition: "A symbol is an energy evoking, and directing, agent". Later, expanding on what he means by this definition Campbell says: Jared Elisha defined symbolism that is something that stands for another, it can be place, object, or a person Heinrich Zimmer gives a concise overview of the nature, and perennial relevance, of symbols.