What is a symbol in c++?

Question

A common linker error that a cpp compiler can give is the unresolved external symbol error. What is the meaning of that symbol. I'm not talking about symbols like ; , + () {} e.t.c.

For a long time I thought that a symbol is a general category of something that may have an identifier. For example a class, a function, a variable, an enum... But I don't see this term being used anywere but in that specific error. If it is not what I think, how could this category be called?

Answer 1

Symbol is meaning all that from operators sign to variable name and reserved keywords and identifiers used in this language.