Word.ws English Dictionary

home sign

home sign noun: the gestural communication system, less than a complete sign language, developed by a deaf child who lacks input from a language model in the family.

Noun

home sign (countable and uncountable, plural home signs)

  1. (error-unknown-tag, uncountable) The gestural communication system, less than a complete sign language, developed by a deaf child who lacks input from a language model in the family.
    Synonyms:
    kitchen sign
  2. (countable, error-unknown-tag) A particular sign in such a system.
    • LeZotte also gives readers a sense of M.V.S.L. (Martha's Vineyard Sign Language), used by the islanders through the mid-1900s but never fully documented, by combining "home signs" she used as a child with variations of American Sign Language.2020 April 27, Meg Medina, “A Deaf Girl Finds Her Voice on Martha's Vineyard in the 19th Century”, in The New York Times Book Review, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC...

Synonyms of home sign

Forms of home sign

pluralhome signs
alternative formhomesign

Words formed from home sign

Questions about home sign

What does home sign mean?
Home sign means the gestural communication system, less than a complete sign language, developed by a deaf child who lacks input from a language model in the family.
What part of speech is home sign?
Home sign is a noun.
What is the plural of home sign?
The plural of home sign is home signs.

Words near home sign in the dictionary

  1. home set
  2. home sets
  3. home shopping
  4. home side
  5. home sides
  6. home sign
  7. home signal
  8. home signals
  9. home signs
  10. home skillet
  11. home skillets

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: home sign (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “home sign.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/home_sign. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.