Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: SIGNIFYING |
SIGNIFYINGPersonal pronoun & verb & noun1. Of Signify |
Date "SIGNIFYING" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1321. (references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Unmeaningness | Empty sound, dead letter, vox et praeterea nihil; "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing"; "sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal." |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: SIGNIFYING |
| Specialty definitions using "SIGNIFYING": abend, Acceptance, Acceptation ♦ carriage paid, catogene, confirmed reservation ♦ Diamonds ♦ ex dock, ex pier, ex quay, ex ship ♦ Fiddle-de-dee!, Fiddlesticks!, FOOLISH, free-on-quay ♦ GOTCH-GUTTED ♦ HOB, HOOKEE WALKER ♦ Ill Omens ♦ JACK NASTY FACE ♦ kotietsintämääräys ♦ Lemonade ♦ Mace, mero-, Morgans, MUNDUNGUS, MUSIC ♦ NOB, None ♦ P, pay as may be paid, post free, Pots, Public-house Signs ♦ riches ♦ SAUCE BOX, STRAND-AND-BINDER CONTROLLER, SWEET HEART ♦ TO BUG ♦ war,etc., wet season. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "SIGNIFYING": Hurricane ♦ signify. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering silmite held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. (Monty Python and the Holy Grail; writing credit: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin.) It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. (Macbeth; writing credit: Roman Polanski; William Shakespeare) | |
Lyrics | To end on a happy note, one can always count on Gilbert and Sullivan for a rousing finale, full of words and music and signifying nothing. (Clementine; performing artist: Tom Lehrer) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
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Music |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Airman Basic Wendell Rush stands in front of his fellow airmen prior to basic military training graduation here Oct. 6. Rush, of Centralia, Ill., signed the 34,000th enlistment contract of fiscal 2000 in July, signifying the Air Force's attainment of its. |  | Nineteenth-century albumin print of a painted portrait. It depicts Commodore Levy holding a scroll inscribed "Author of the Abolition of Flogging in the Navy of the United States". The uniform seen in this image features four sleeve stripes, signifying the rank of Captain. Levy died in 1862, several years prior to the adoption of this element, indicating that the portrait was painted posthumously, possibly in the 1870s or 1880s. Credit: NAVY. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Author | Quotation |
William Shakespeare | Life It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury; signifying nothing. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Title | Author | Quote |
Macbeth | William Shakespeare | Out, out brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Economic History | Zimbabwe | In 1981, several MPs from Smith's party left to sit as "independents," signifying that they did not automatically accept his antigovernment posture. (references) |
Lexicography | Devil's Dictionary | RICHES, n. A gift from Heaven signifying, "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased." John D. Rockefeller The reward of toil and virtue. J.P. Morgan The sayings of many in the hands of one. Eugene Debs To these excellent definitions the inspired lexicographer feels that he can add nothing of value. |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "SIGNIFYING" is generally used as a lexical verb (-ing form) -- approximately 81.90% of the time. "SIGNIFYING" is used about 105 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Lexical Verb (-ing form) | 81.9% | 86 | 35,638 |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 17.14% | 18 | 82,615 |
| Noun (proper) | 0.95% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 105 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
the signifying monkey | 21 |
signifying | 3 |
full fury nothing signifying sound | 3 |
fury nothing signifying sound | 3 |
monkey poem signifying | 2 |
nothing signifying | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "SIGNIFYING"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Chinese | 符号化 (signified, signify). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
French | signifiant (significant). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
German | bedeutend (appreciable, connotatively, connoting, considerable, considerably, crucial, distinguished, eminent, great, greatly, important, large, major, mattering, meaning, notable, serious, significant, significantly, substantial, substantive, vastly). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | importante (big, esentially, essential, grand, great, important, importent, key, momentous, notable, prominent, serious, significant, vital, weighty). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Korean | 의미 (meaning, semantic, significance, signification). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | ignifyingsay значить означающий. (various references) do- (pref. signifying difficult of accomplishment). (various references) cuantioso (considerable, great, heavy, large, multitudinously, numerous, significant). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Language | Date | Source | John Chapter 12, Verse 33 |
| Greek (transliterated) | 250 BC | Septuagint | Touto de elegen shmainwn poiw qanatw hmellen apoqnhskein |
| Latin | 405 | Vulgate | Hoc autem dicebat significans qua morte esset moriturus |
| Old English | 990 | West Saxon | Ðæt he sægde & tacnede hwylcen deaðehe woldan sweltan. |
| Middle English | 1395 | Wyclif | And he seide this thing, signifiynge bi what deth he `was to die. |
| Renaissance English | 1526 | Tyndale | This sayde Iesus signifyinge what deeth he shuld dye. |
| Jacobean English | 1611 | King James | This he said, signifying what death he should die. |
| Victorian English | 1833 | Webster | (This he said, signifying what death he should die.) |
| Basic English | 1964 | Ogden | (This he said, pointing to the sort of death he would have.) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Language | John Chapter 12, Verse 33 |
| Cebuano | Kini gisulti niya aron sa pagpasabut sa paagi sa kamatayon nga iyang pagakamatyan. |
| Chinese | 耶 穌 這 話 原 是 指 著 自 己 將 要 怎 樣 死 說 的 。 |
| Croatian | To reèe da oznaèi kakvom æe smræu umrijeti. |
| Danish | Men dette sagde han for at betegne, hvilken Død han skulde dø. |
| Finnish | Mutta sen hän sanoi antaen tietää, minkäkaltaisella kuolemalla hän oli kuoleva. |
| French | En parlant ainsi, il indiquait de quelle mort il devait mourir. - |
| Hungarian | Ezt pedig azért mondá, hogy megjelentse, milyen halállal kell meghalnia. |
| Indonesian-Bahasa Sehari-hari | Ia berkata begitu untuk menunjukkan bagaimana caranya Ia akan mati. |
| Indonesian-Terjemahan Lama | Tetapi inilah dikatakan-Nya hendak menyatakan perihal mati-Nya. |
| Italian | Questo diceva per indicare di qual morte doveva morire. |
| Maori | I penei ai ia hei whakaatu i te mate e mate ai ia. |
| Norwegian | Dette sa han for å gi til kjenne hvad for en død han skulde dø. |
| Portuguese | Isto dizia, significando de que modo havia de morrer. |
| Rumanian | Vorbind astfel, arqta cu ce moarte avea sq moarq. - |
| Russian | уЙЕ ЗПЧПТЙМ пО, "БЧБС ТБЪХНЕФШ, ЛБЛПА УНЕТФША пО ХНТЕФ. |
| Shuar | Juna taku Krúsnum Jákatniun ujakmiayi. |
| Spanish | Esto decía dando a entender de qué muerte había de morir. |
| Swedish | Med dessa ord gav han till känna på vad sätt han skulle dö. |
| Uma | Lolita-na Yesus toe, mpowalatu beiwa mpai' karapatehi-na. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "SIGNIFYING": signifyings. (additional references) | |
Words ending with "SIGNIFYING": presignifying. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "SIGNIFYING" (pronounced si"gnufī'ing) |
| 7 | -g n u f ī' i ng | magnifying. |
| 6 | -n u f ī' i ng | unifying. |
| 5 | -u f ī' i ng | amplifying, certifying, clarifying, classifying, codifying, disqualifying, diversifying, edifying, electrifying, exemplifying, falsifying, fortifying, gentrifying, glorifying, gratifying, horrifying, identifying, intensifying, justifying, modifying, mummifying, mystifying, notifying, nullifying, oversimplifying, purifying, qualifying, quantifying, ratifying, reclassifying, rectifying, simplifying, solidifying, specifying, stultifying, terrifying, testifying, verifying. |
| 4 | -f ī' i ng | satisfying, unsatisfying. |
| 3 | -ī' i ng | multiplying, occupying, outlying. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "f-g-g-i-i-i-n-n-s-y" | |
-1 letter: ignifying. | |
-3 letters: finings, signify, signing, singing. | |
-4 letters: fining, ignify. | |
-5 letters: finis, finny, ginny. | |
| Words containing the letters "f-g-g-i-i-i-n-n-s-y" | |
+1 letter: signifyings. | |
+3 letters: presignifying. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)53 49 47 4E 49 46 59 49 4E 47 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references)... .. --. -. .. ..-. -.--. .. -. --. |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01010011 01001001 01000111 01001110 01001001 01000110 01011001 01001001 01001110 01000111 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)S I G N I F Y I N G |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0053 0049 0047 004E 0049 0046 0059 0049 004E 0047 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)53434148434059434841 |
| Language | Coverage | Language Translations |
Chinese | 字典 , 定義 , 定义, 翻译 | 汉语, 中 , 漢 , 中國 , Chinois, Chinesisch, cinese, 중국, китайский, китаец, chino |
French | dictionnaire, définition, traduction | 法國 , 法文 , 法語 , 法语, français, französisch, francese, "랑스, французский, francés |
German | wörterbuch, Übersetzung | 德语, 德國 , 德文 , 德語 , allemand, deutsch, Deutsche, tedesco, 독일, немецкий, alemán |
Italian | dizionario, definizione, traduzione | 意大利 , 意大利語 , 意大利语, italien, italienisch, italiano, 이탈리아, итальянский язык, итальянец, итальянский |
Korean | 사 , 의, 번역 | 韩国语, "國 , 朝鮮語 , coréen, koreanisch, Koreaner, 한국, кореец, корейский, coreano |
Russian | словарь, определение, трансляция, сдвиг, перевод, перемещение | 俄語 , 俄文 , 俄语, Russe, russisch, russo, 러시아, русский, ruso |
Scottish | foclair, abardair, faclair, briathrachan | 苏 兰, écossais, schottisch, scozzese, 스"틀랜", шотландский, escocés |
Spanish | diccionario, definición, traducción | 西班牙語 , 西班牙文 , 西班牙语, espagnol, spanisch, spagnolo, 스페인, испанский, español |
English | Dictionary, Definition, Translation | 英语, 英國 , 英文 , 英 , 英語 , anglais, englisch, inglese, 영국, английский, beurla, inglés |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Modern 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Slideshow 6. Images: Photo Album 7. Quotations: Familiar 8. Quotations: Fiction | 9. Quotations: Non-fiction 10. Usage Frequency 11. Expressions: Internet 12. Translations: Modern | 13. Bible Trace 14. Derivations 15. Rhymes 16. Anagrams | 17. Orthography 18. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
