sign manual
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of sign manual
late Middle English word dating back to 1400–50
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
It was therefore obligatory that purchasers should know his work, that in fact his sign manual should be always present.
From Antonio Stradivari by Petherick, Horace William
It was their signum manuale, their sign manual.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" by Various
That is the sign manual of their intense respectability.
From Black Oxen by Atherton, Gertrude Franklin Horn
Dalis had known the secret sign manual of these two; but would the intelligence of the cubes comprehend it?
From Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 by Bates, Harry
There were in Ireland under the jurisdiction of the Lord Chancellor, committed to him by the Queen's sign manual, 229.
From Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles by Tuke, Daniel Hack
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
