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Signify   /sˈɪgnəfˌaɪ/   Listen
verb
Signify  v. t.  (past & past part. signified; pres. part. signifying)  
1.
To show by a sign; to communicate by any conventional token, as words, gestures, signals, or the like; to announce; to make known; to declare; to express; as, a signified his desire to be present. "I 'll to the king; and signify to him That thus I have resign'd my charge to you." "The government should signify to the Protestants of Ireland that want of silver is not to be remedied."
2.
To mean; to import; to denote; to betoken. "He bade her tell him what it signified." "A tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing." Note: Signify is often used impersonally; as, it signifies nothing, it does not signify, that is, it is of no importance.
Synonyms: To express; manifest; declare; utter; intimate; betoken; denote; imply; mean.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Signify" Quotes from Famous Books



... imply, what the Assyrian sculptures fully bear out, that it was the practice of the ancient god-kings of the East to trample upon the conquered. And when we bear in mind that there are existing savages who signify submission by placing the neck under the foot of the person submitted to, it becomes obvious that all prostration, especially when accompanied by kissing the foot, expressed a willingness to be trodden upon—was an attempt to mitigate wrath by saying, in signs, "Tread on me if you will." Remembering, ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer

... words which is very noticeable, running through the inscriptions, is that of depositus, used by the Christians to signify the laying away in the grave, in place of the heathen words situs, positus, sepultus, conditus. The very name of coemeterium, adopted by the Christians for their burial-places, a name unknown to the ancient Romans, bore a reference to the great doctrine ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various

... so Doria stood upon her dignity, treating Jaffery with cold politeness. In the mornings she allowed him to wrap her up in her garden chair and attend to her comforts, and then, settled down, she would open a volume of Tolstoi and courteously signify his dismissal. Jaffery with a hang-dog expression went with me to the golf-course, where he drove with prodigious muscular skill, and putted execrably. Had it not been a question of good taste, to say nothing of human sentiment, I would have reminded him that the thing he ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke

... was on my left hand, made signs to me to accompany him towards the spot where we had left one of the canoes. I also understood him to signify that the dogs would prevent the deer from turning back. On reaching the canoe he lifted me into it, and stepping after me, seized a paddle, and with a few strokes sent it skimming out into the lake. Rounding a point, we soon caught sight of the deer, which stood ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston

... as memorials of civil contracts; as by Jacob, in his contract with Laban, when the attendants of the latter raised a heap, to signify their assent to the treaty. Those conical, pyramidal, and cylindric stones, perpendicularly raised, which are seen in the British Isles, were formerly introduced in general, to ascertain the boundaries ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 394, October 17, 1829 • Various


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