ˈsignifier
[f. as prec. + -er1.]
a. One who or that which signifies; a significator.
| 1532 More Confut. Tindale Wks. 383/2 He meaneth y{supt}..y⊇ sacrament..is no cause thereof..but only a bare signyfier & a shewer therof. 1586 Lupton 1000 Notable Things §59 Whosoeuer falles sicke in that yere wherein there is an Eclipse, and the Signifiers of the sayd Eclipse be in the Ascendent [etc.]. 1607 Schol. Disc. agst. Antichr. 97 It is God who is the signifier vnto vs of things spirituall. 1624 [see signifying ppl. a.]. 1668 Culpepper & Cole Barthol. Anat. iii. vii. 143 It hath Muscles, which Platenis terms the signifiers of the Affections of the Mind. |
b. Linguistics and Semiotics. = signifiant. Opp. signified n.
| 1954 U. Weinreich Languages in Contact ii. 9 It becomes possible for the bilingual to interpret two signs whose semantemes, or signifieds, he has identified as a compound sign with a single signified and two signifiers, one in each language. 1960 W. Baskin tr. de Saussure's Course in Gen. Linguistics i. i. 67 The bond between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary. 1967 Lavers & Smith tr. Barthes's Elements of Semiology iii. 65 The commutation test consists of artificially introducing a change in the plane of expression (signifiers) and in observing whether this change brings about a correlative modification on the plane of content (signifieds). 1973 Screen Spring/Summer 89 In a great many cases the term ‘form’ designates the film signifier..and the term ‘content’ its signified. 1976 T. Eagleton Crit. & Ideology iii. 72 History, one might say, is the ultimate signifier of literature, as it is the ultimate signified. 1977 A. Sheridan tr. Lacan's {Eacu}crits iii. 69 The symptom is here the signifier of a signified repressed from the consciousness of the subject. 1979 Dædalus Summer 72 He has only to offer the Signifier, ‘Lie’—which could mean ‘tell an untruth’—for Othello to snatch the Signified, ‘lie with’. |
c. U.S. slang (chiefly Blacks'). One who boasts or makes insulting remarks or insinuations, esp. in an attempt to exceed others in exaggeration.
| 1962 Jrnl. Amer. Folklore July–Sept. 212 The monkey is a ‘signifier’, and one of the methods he uses for inflaming the lion is to indicate that the elephant has been ‘sounding’ on the lion. 1965 H. Gold Man who was not with It xxii. 204 When he bragged like any carnie signifier, then I wondered where and why I was going. 1972 J. Maryland in T. Kochman Rappin' & Stylin' Out 209 The following verbal play is indicative of the type that might be found in any of a number of shine parlors..or street corners where the signifiers can be found congregating each day. |