The many definitions of the concept of symbol proposed in different disciplines and periods of history are surveyed, and it is concluded that all this variety produced a confusion to the point that the term "symbol" is in a crisis. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's, Umberto Eco's, and Adam Schaff's conceptions of symbol are outlined and a working definition is tested by studying the use of the rose as a symbol in Western art and literature. It is concluded that symbol is the "reinterpretation of a concrete object into a sign of the abstract-ideal" and this reinterpretation involves metonymic, metaphorical, and synecdochic processes. (Copyright 1997, Sociological Abstracts, Inc., all rights reserved.) (Z. Dubiel in LLBA 1997, vol. 31, n. 5)