| Library / English Dictionary |
SIGNIFIER
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The phonological or orthographic sound or appearance of a word that can be used to describe or identify something
Example:
the inflected forms of a word can be represented by a stem and a list of inflections to be attached
Synonyms:
descriptor; form; signifier; word form
Classified under:
Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents
Hypernyms ("signifier" is a kind of...):
word (a unit of language that native speakers can identify)
Domain category:
linguistics (the scientific study of language)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "signifier"):
plural; plural form (the form of a word that is used to denote more than one)
singular; singular form (the form of a word that is used to denote a singleton)
ghost word (a word form that has entered the language through the perpetuation of an error)
base; radical; root; root word; stem; theme ((linguistics) the form of a word after all affixes are removed)
etymon; root (a simple form inferred as the common basis from which related words in several languages can be derived by linguistic processes)
citation form; entry word; main entry word (the form of a word that heads a lexical entry and is alphabetized in a dictionary)
abbreviation (a shortened form of a word or phrase)
acronym; initialism (a word formed from the initial letters of the several words in the name and pronounced as one word)
Derivation:
signify (denote or connote)
