Word.ws English Dictionary

siglum

Syllables: sig·lum/ˈsɪɡləm/

siglum noun: a letter or other symbol that stands for a name or word; specifically, one used in a modern literary work to refer to an early version of a text.

Noun

siglum (plural sigla)

  1. A letter or other symbol that stands for a name or word; specifically, one used in a modern literary work to refer to an early version of a text.
  2. (figuratively) A thing which represents something else; a sign, a symbol.
    • [H]e emerged onto a garden terrace where on the soft red sand one could make out the sigla of a summer day: the imprints of a dog's paws, the beaded tracks of a wagtail, the Dunlop stripe left by Tanya's bicycle, […]1963, Vladimir Nabokov, chapter 2, in Michael Scammell, Vladimir Nabokov, transl., The Gift, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson […], →OCLC, page 86

Forms of siglum

pluralsigla

Origin of siglum

Learned borrowing from Late Latin siglum (“abbreviation”), possibly a contracted form of: * sigillum (“figurine, statuette; seal”), from signum (“figure, statue; seal, signet; mark, sign”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *sek- (“to cut, sever; to cut off”) or *sekʷ- (“to follow”)) + -ulum (diminutive suffix); or * singulum, a singular form of singulus (“apiece; every; single”, adjective), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *sem- (“one; together”). The plural form sigla is a learned borrowing from Late Latin sigla.

Words formed from siglum

Questions about siglum

What does siglum mean?
Siglum means a letter or other symbol that stands for a name or word; specifically, one used in a modern literary work to refer to an early version of a text.
What part of speech is siglum?
Siglum is a noun.
How do you pronounce siglum?
Siglum is pronounced /ˈsɪɡləm/ (UK).
What is the plural of siglum?
The plural of siglum is sigla.

Words near siglum in the dictionary

  1. Siglit
  2. Siglitun
  3. sigloi
  4. sigloite
  5. siglos
  6. siglum
  7. sigma
  8. sigma additivity
  9. sigma bond
  10. sigma bonds
  11. sigma male

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: siglum (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.

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