English Dictionary

SIGNIFICATION

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does signification mean? 

SIGNIFICATION (noun)
  The noun SIGNIFICATION has 1 sense:

1. the message that is intended or expressed or signifiedplay

  Familiarity information: SIGNIFICATION used as a noun is very rare.


 Dictionary entry details 


SIGNIFICATION (noun)


Sense 1

Meaning:

The message that is intended or expressed or signified

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

import; meaning; significance; signification

Context example:

the import of his announcement was ambiguous

Hypernyms ("signification" is a kind of...):

content; message; subject matter; substance (what a communication that is about something is about)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "signification"):

lexical meaning (the meaning of a content word that depends on the nonlinguistic concepts it is used to express)

grammatical meaning (the meaning of a word that depends on its role in a sentence; varies with inflectional form)

symbolisation; symbolization (the use of symbols to convey meaning)

sense; signified (the meaning of a word or expression; the way in which a word or expression or situation can be interpreted)

connotation; intension (what you must know in order to determine the reference of an expression)

referent (something referred to; the object of a reference)

burden; core; effect; essence; gist (the central meaning or theme of a speech or literary work)

intent; purport; spirit (the intended meaning of a communication)

lesson; moral (the significance of a story or event)

nicety; nuance; refinement; shade; subtlety (a subtle difference in meaning or opinion or attitude)

overtone ((usually plural) an ulterior implicit meaning or quality)

point (a brief version of the essential meaning of something)

Derivation:

signify (denote or connote)


 Context examples 


I felt the greatest ardour for virtue rise within me, and abhorrence for vice, as far as I understood the signification of those terms, relative as they were, as I applied them, to pleasure and pain alone.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

I was still pondering the signification of Institution, and endeavouring to make out a connection between the first words and the verse of Scripture, when the sound of a cough close behind me made me turn my head.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I afterwards found that these labours, performed by an invisible hand, greatly astonished them; and once or twice I heard them, on these occasions, utter the words good spirit, wonderful; but I did not then understand the signification of these terms.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)



 Learn English with... Proverbs 
"Diseases come on horseback, but steal away on foot." (English proverb)

"Poor is the man who does not think of the old age." (Albanian proverb)

"When the axe came to the forest, the trees said: "The handle is one of us."" (Armenian proverb)

"Anyone who lives will know trying times." (Corsican proverb)



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