Definition of "rebusses"

For the Sake of Variety I have, in the following Rebuſſes, differed in the Manner of Compoſition from the preceding Part of this Collection: As, / […] / Theſe two Examples, with the Knowledge you muſt have acquired in this Kind of Gueſs-work, after having conſidered the ſeventy-ſix Rebuſſes already paſſed over, I think is a ſufficient Guide through the Labyrinth, but if ever you are at a Stand, catch bold directly of the Clew, which take my Word for it, will conduct you to the End without ſtumbling.

1753, Jonathan Puzzle, “To the Reader”, in The Labyrinth: Being an Exercise for Wit and Humour by Rational Rebusses. […], Dublin: […] James Hoey, […], page 15

Answers to the Rebusses in laſt Year’s Palladium.

1767, Fame’s Palladium, or Annual Miscellany: Being a Supplement to the Ladies Diary, for the Year of our Lord 1767. […], number nineteenth, London: […] J. Browne, for T. Peat, […], page 35

There is a profusion of rebusses on the groining of the ceiling, in conformity with the taste of the age. […] For, looking up to the groining round the centre orbs, one representing the Almighty, the other the Blessed Virgin, we find the following characters and rebusses: the letter T, the syllable Hun, the figure of a ton, for Thomas Hunton, and the figure […] for prior.

1808, John Milner, An Historical and Critical Account of Winchester Cathedral, pages 91–92

resolution / rebusses / communism

1981, Middle and Secondary School Reading, list “combustion”, page 275, column 2

Letters and script form rebusses or collages of images that convey a manifest content of an order both identical and contrary to that of the narrative.

1986, Eutopías, page 108