What do icons mean?

What is needed is a directory where we can look up what icons mean. The problem is that picture language/hieroglyphics cannot be indexed in the way that language can be (alphabetically or numerically.

A more radical approach - I would like to have a settings option that replaces ALL icons with simple words of the English language - for those of us who can't read Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.

I cannot find this setting in Windows 10. Can anyone help?

I'm not going to get pulled into a semantic argument.

No, that's not the idea. I've just never come across a reliable definition of 'app', so what it means for one person may be different from what it means for another. Just like a plus sign in a circle means Add to me, but it means Unhide to you and your boss.

.. you can tell from easy context clues. 

Surely the whole point of icons like this is that they convey a meaning by their very appearance? If you have to examine the context and read labels to find out what an icon means, it's not much use as an icon. It serves to confuse rather than to guide the user.

Try Wikipedia  

You can't look up an icon in Wikipedia - or if you can, I've yet to discover how. That's part of the problem - you have to know what it means to be able to look it up.

... you even know what all these meant before you asked.

Yes, because I've had to use them. The ones I posted were only examples of a whole universe of 'new' icons whose meaning is woolly at best and undefined at worst. It would make life so much easier if I could find a page somewhere with definitions or descriptions for them.

One of the biggest problems is the inconsistency I see everywhere, which is what makes me think that there aren't any standards. Two seen in the last fifteen minutes:

1. At Yammer, I see one of your Unhide icons. I point at it and get the 'context clue' - so here it means Create (≅ Add). At the bottom of the same page element, I see another, different icon whose context clue is identical:

 Different functions or same function?

You'll also notice the Browse icon there - a loupe with its handle pointing SE. This is perhaps to distinguish it from the well-known and intuitive Search loupe, which has its handle pointing SW like the one on this page:

But ... no, the Search loupe on the Yammer page is identical to the Browse loupe, with its handle SE. So why the rotation? Perhaps it doesn't matter? Which is standard? I think you'll agree that it matters quite a bit whether your Unhide icon is displayed as shown here or rotated 45º:

Can you now understand my confusion? Who sets the standards?

Thanks, Shawn.

These are all standards,

Standards? International, or perhaps American standards? If they are indeed standards, there must be a catalogue somewhere that explains what they mean.

 this button lets you expand open a section to read more details.

Yes, I know that - I just have difficulty making the semantic leap from Addto Unhide.

 This looks like a menu,

It doesn't look like any sort of menu that I've ever seen. It looks like a window with nine panes. Or the side of a Rubik's cube.

 this button shows you other apps you can use from your Outlook

Apps? It shows me some other pages I can go to. I thought an app was a program installed in a device ... I still don't see why a representation of a window should lead me to believe that clicking it will help me navigate to different web pages.

  the webpage tells you already.

Yes, I know what the words say - they just don't match up with the picture. I can't see how any standards organization could adopt a picture like this to mean Import. I'm also sure I've seen this icon elsewhere with a different meaning, perhaps Up to top - which is what it looks like.

  Menu, used universally in hundreds of millions of apps and websites around the world.  Just look here.

I've certainly never seen it explained anywhere that this means Menu - and I can't see where hamburgers come into it. And if the nine-paned window also means Menu, what's the difference between them? 

However, this is really getting bogged down in the detail. Can you point to the resource that documents these standards so that I can look them up for myself? Where did you learn what these icons mean?

These are all standards, Microsoft didn't create these (they're used by other companies, schools, businesses, enterprises, apps, services, and more).

 Seen widely on Microsoft support sites, this button lets you expand open a section to read more details.  It will change to a subtraction (--) sign to indicate you can "roll up" and hide the section again when you're done reading it.  Almost every website with expand/collapse ability of sections uses this globally-recognizable and common "plus/minus" system to indicate it.

 This looks like a menu, and sure enough if you click it and you'll see that this button shows you other apps you can use from your Outlook (calendar, address book, etc.).

  You don't need me to tell you this one, the webpage tells you already.  So I won't insult your intelligence by pretending you need me to read it to you.

  Menu, used universally in hundreds of millions of apps and websites around the world.  Just look here.