How to use signifier in a sentence
17 example sentences · noun
Signifier means something or someone that signifies, makes something more significant or important. Example: “If commentators have concurred on the characterization of Reagan as a synecdoche, they have also noted his status as a signifier.”
Examples of signifier by meaning
nounSomething or someone that signifies, makes something more significant or important.
- If commentators have concurred on the characterization of Reagan as a synecdoche, they have also noted his status as a signifier.2008, Diane Rubenstein, This is Not a President: Sense, Nonsense, and the American Political Imaginary
nounA sign, such as a written or spoken word, which refers to some concept, object or person, the signified.
- Here things are getting better and better for women and people of color, and gay men and lesbians, more and more integrated and open, and all you can think about is some stupid, lame problem with signifiers and signifieds.2001, Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections
More sentences with signifier
- But the conventional nature of rhyme and metre, their essential arbitrariness, points to the fact that they themselves are also signifiers, albeit paralexical and to some extent parasyntactic.From the entry paralexical
- The paternal signifiers of labor, alienation, and the monogendered class dynamic of historical materialism remain taken-for-granted universals.1992, Carmen Luke, “Feminist Politics in Radical Pedagogy”, in Feminisms and Critical Pedagogy, Routledge, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 30. From the entry monogendered
- In Peircean terms, topics are interpretants: signifieds that become new signifiers in the endless semiotic chain of interpretations.2012, Esti Sheinberg, Music Semiotics, page 9. From the entry topic
- On the contrary, it is a kind of paleologism, a primitive signifier, "a word from a barbarian time."2006, Philippe Roger as, translated by Sharon Bowman, The American Enemy: The History of French Anti-Americanism, →ISBN, page 252. From the entry paleologism
- A mishmash of cross-wired gender signifiers that suggests little more than the artist's confusion about her subject matter.2001, Susan Stryker, Queer Pulp, page 42. From the entry cross-wired
- Yet the morbid dimension of the painting is best understood as an intimation and not a keen signifier of the actual death of the depictee.2016, Nathaniel Wallace, Scanning the Hypnoglyph: Sleep in Modernist and Postmodern Representation, Leiden; Boston, Mass.: Brill, →ISBN…. From the entry depictee
- Citizens are provided with a case number when they call, and that will be the only signifier that tipsters are who they say they are.2016 August 25, Garrett Mitchell, Michael Kiefer, “Turn in Phoenix 'serial street shooter,' collect $75K, remain anonymous. Here's how…. From the entry phonelike
- Although 'corruption' is still a dominant signifier in the public realm, it has all but disappeared from the public articulations of professional associations.2013, Lucy Koechlin, Corruption as an Empty Signifier, page 252. From the entry signifer
- The first is a formation recalling what was discussed a propos the bricoleur, where an old signifier brings with it archaisms into a changed context.2012, Marian Hobson, Jacques Derrida: Opening Lines, →ISBN, page 26. From the entry neonymy
- At the same time, media signifiers of Latinidad depend on phenotypic racial markers such as facial features, hair texture, and skin color.2010, Isabel Molina-Guzman, Dangerous Curves: Latina Bodies in the Media, →ISBN, page 4. From the entry latinidad
- Indeed, split white trash in two again and read the meanings of each: white now appears as an ethnoracial signifier, and trash, a signifier of abject class status.2006, Matt Wray, Not Quite White, page 3. From the entry ethnoracial
- Roundness, as with earlier secretary hand, was a signifier of trade – a spikier hand was regarded as more fitting for young ladies' personal letter writing.1996, David Graddol, “English Manuscripts: The Emergence of a Visual Identity”, in David Graddol, Dick Leith, Joan Swann, editors…. From the entry spiky
- Representation is established through successive overcodings, and the meaning of a phenomenon is given by the dominant overcoding, through a process of one code (or signifier) replacing another.1996, Philip Goodchild, Deleuze and Guattari: An Introduction to the Politics of Desire, →ISBN. From the entry overcoding
- Her work is a renunciation of the old narrative, a throwing away of the cotton reel, an enunciation of the unary signifier, fort, that is meaningless in itself.1995, Becky McLaughlin, “Perverse Pleasure and Fetishized Text: The Deathly Erotics of Carter’s ‘The Bloody Chamber’”, in Style, volume…. From the entry unary
- It is the broader umbrella concept of cultural re-birth that acts as a master signifier suturing the vast spectrum of Islamism, from its peaceful articulations to its more violent manifestations.2021, Tahir Abbas, Countering Violent Extremism: The International Deradicalization Agenda, →ISBN. From the entry master signifier
Meaning of signifier
- noun Something or someone that signifies, makes something more significant or important.
- noun A card representing a querent, question, or situation.
- noun A sign, such as a written or spoken word, which refers to some concept, object or person, the signified.
Questions about signifier in a sentence
- How do you use signifier in a sentence?
- Signifier is used as a noun. For example: “If commentators have concurred on the characterization of Reagan as a synecdoche, they have also noted his status as a signifier.”
- What is a short sentence with signifier?
- “The paternal signifiers of labor, alienation, and the monogendered class dynamic of historical materialism remain taken-for-granted universals.”
- What does signifier mean?
- Signifier means something or someone that signifies, makes something more significant or important.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: signifier (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this page: “How to use signifier in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/signifier. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
