Remember when it signified an actual ... “madwoman”, in an actual ... “attic”?
To them, that “signified a lack of recovery and inability to move on.”
People wanted to know what she was wearing, not because it signified anything, but simply because it was on her back.
Ruth could hardly face returning to America and the failure that would have signified.
When the House censured Charlie Rangel yesterday, it signified a shift in how Congress does business.
Their names often signified some quality of a horse; as Leucippus, a white horse, &c.
She told me, It signified nothing to talk: I knew the expectation of every one.
What signified it whether you was married in a red or a yellow waistcoat?
Then, with a wave of his hand, he signified to the boys to run out and play games.
She signified her helplessness with a quick and dainty movement of her hands.
late 13c., "be a sign of, indicate, mean," from Old French signifier (12c.), from Latin significare "to make signs, show by signs, point out, express; mean, signify; foreshadow, portend," from significus (adj.), from signum "sign" (see sign (n.)) + root of facere "to make" (see factitious). Intransitive sense of "to be of importance" is attested from 1660s. Meaning "engage in mock-hostile banter" is American English black slang first recorded 1932.
...'signifying,' which in Harlemese means making a series of oblique remarks apparently addressed to no one in particular, but unmistakable in intention in such a close-knit circle. ["Down Beat," March 7, 1968]
verb
To make provocative comments in a gamelike manner; snap, sound: any black kid who has stood in a school yard or on a street corner engaging in the mock-hostile banter that blacks call ''signifying''/ In Chicago you still get people doing the old-style rhyming; that's called signifying (1932+ Black)
