signifier
- noun
- /ˈsɪɡnɪˌfaɪər/
- Specialized
- The signifier 'dog' points to the concept of a domesticated animal known for companionship.
- signifier and signified
- relationship between signifier
The sign would would be, or the signifier would be the form.
- The sign would would be, or the signifier would be the form.
- The third most common signifier, So the third most obvious sign that the person that you're listening to or whose thing you're reading is a man or a woman is the word fuck.
Examples
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Nora attempts to connect the signified, the father's name, with the signifier, the signature.
Academic text (1997) -
Who selected Delphine's clothes as they appear to be an extremely important signifier of her mood?
Blog text (28) -
For Everett, America is history, its status as signifier long ago determined.
Academic text (2001) -
The dropping of a letter in this transition is crucial because it is a signifier of the lack produced in this transformation.
Academic text (1992) -
Style, normally seen as an insignificant surface manifestation of language, becomes the signifier for a vast range of rhetorical phenomena.
Academic text (2001) -
Visuals are not playthings because signifiers have serious consequences in the status quo.
Blog text (8) -
Each quotation has, as Brown obliquely hints in his commentary, its own semiotic link or visual signifier in the painting.
Academic text (1992) -
In linguistics, a signifier is the form that conveys meaning, like the word 'tree' representing the concept of a tree.
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In semiotics, understanding the signifier helps decode the hidden meanings behind various symbols.
Synonyms
An object that stands for an idea or feeling
The sound or spelling of a word
A visible thing like a flag that stands for an idea you cannot see
A written mark, like a letter, that stands for a sound or idea
A person or thing that shows a meaning
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
The word signifier comes from Latin parts signum ('sign') and facere ('to make'), and you can see the same root in English words like sign and signal. So a signifier is something that 'makes' or shows a sign, the sound or written form of a word that points to the idea or object it represents.