sign-post, n.
[sign n.]
1. a. A post supporting a sign, usually that of an inn or shop.
| 1620 Fletcher Chances iii. i, If this geer hold, Best hang a sign-post up, to tell the Signiors, Here ye may have lewdness at Liverie. 1642 Milton Apol. Smect. Wks. 1851 III. 258 Hung out like a toling signe-post to call passengers. 1670 Moral St. Eng. 92 A good Inn hath very seldome a bad Sign-post. 1711 Addison Spect. No. 28 ¶3 When did the Lamb and Dolphin ever meet, except upon a Sign-Post? 1784 Cowper Task iv. 483 Fell Discord,..Perch'd on the sign-post, holds with even hand Her undecisive scales. 1818 Byron Juan i. ii, [They] fill'd their sign-posts then, like Wellesley now. 1849 Macaulay Hist. Eng. v. I. 634 The signpost of the White Hart Inn served for a gallows. 1876 Bancroft Hist. U.S. III. xix. 521 He..was menaced with being hanged, like Porteus of Edinburgh, upon a sign⁓post, if he did so. |
| fig. 1889 Doyle Micah Clarke 107 We..were gazing in silence at this sign-post of death, when..a bundle of rags..at the foot of the gallows began suddenly to move. |
b. attrib. and
Comb., as
sign-post dauber,
sign-post painter,
sign-post painting,
sign-post picture.
| 1677 Dryden To Lee 51 But how should any sign-post dauber know The worth of Titian or of Angelo? 1682 ― Medal Ep., But Sign-post painting will serve the turn to remember a Friend by. 1751 Earl of Orrery Rem. Swift (1752) 83 While there remained a sign-post painter in the world. 1779 Mirror No. 9 Those same Latin scraps,..which you sometimes hang out by way of sign-post inscription at the top of your paper. 1815 L. Simond Tour Gt. Brit. II. 216, I never saw such a collection of miserable sign-post pictures any where before. |
2. A guide- or direction-post, set up to indicate the proper road to a place; a finger-post. Also
fig. and
attrib.| 1863 Ld. Lytton King of Amasis i. ii. iii, The stretched forefinger of a common sign-post. 1889 Gretton Memory's Harkback 149, I came to a signpost directing me to the left. 1961 Atlanta Constitution 17 Aug. 5 In the..breathless state of being in love the usual signposts that guide you to lasting and satisfying relationships are sometimes obscured. 1962 Listener 6 Dec. 958/2 He therefore studies talk more closely and discovers that..by selecting signpost phrases, he can convey what is being felt by what is unsaid. 1969 I. & P. Opie Children's Games p. viii, Full use has been made of the signposts, clearly marked for those willing to look for them, that are provided by The Oxford English Dictionary and The English Dialect Dictionary. |
So
ˈsignpostless a., not equipped with or marked by sign-posts.
| 1962 Times 22 Feb. 14/4 The signpost-less lanes of Surrey. 1968 Economist 16 Mar. 12/2 A preposterous, unanalysable, ignorant, signpostless, meandering mess. |