autoicon

English

Etymology

auto- +‎ icon

Noun

autoicon (plural autoicons)

1. Something that serves as an icon representing itself.
   • 2008, Robin Osborne, Jeremy Tanner, Art's Agency and Art History:

     […] as recently as the 1950s in Taiwan, flesh-body portraits were autoicons produced by a sustained process of self-starvation, while seated in a meditating position, relying on a diet including pine kernels and cinnabar to dehydrate the body […]

   • 2009, Keith Hayward, Shadd Maruna, Jayne Mooney, Fifty Key Thinkers in Criminology:

     Many regard as typically and preciously odd his wish to have his body mummified after death so that in place of a stone statue of himself he could be an 'autoicon'.