Symbolism: from the Greek symbolon, meaning token or sign.

1) Something that stands for or suggests something else by reason of relationship, association, convention, or accidental resemblance, especially: a visible sign of something invisible, as in "the lion is a symbol of courage"

2) an arbitrary or conventional sign used in writing to represent operations, quantities, elements, relations, or qualities, as in 1+1=2; X is a symbol of Christianity or a mathematical sign

3) An object or act representing something in the unconscious mind that has been repressed: phallic symbol

4) An act, sound, or object having cultural significance and the capacity to excite a response

multivalent: a)represented more than twice in the somatic chromosome number <multivalent chromosomes
b)having many values, meanings, or appeals

polysemic: a word having several or multiple meanings