Word.ws English Dictionary

signalese

signalese noun: words and abbreviations used by radio operators and other signalmen to clarify the letters being sent and received, such as the RAF phonetic alphabet.

Noun

signalese (uncountable)

  1. Words and abbreviations used by radio operators and other signalmen to clarify the letters being sent and received, such as the RAF phonetic alphabet.
    • The signalese for 'S/L' I could decipher, but the NMI defeated me, until I learned that it referred to the fact, an oddity to Americans, that I had 'No Middle Initial'.1967, Lawrence Wright, The Wooden Sword, page 164
    • The signal "dit-dah-dit- dit-dit" which, in signalese meant "wait", was heard a lot while we attempted to decipher what it was the operator on the other end1990, Ken Bradstreet, Hellcats

Origin of signalese

From signal + -ese.

Questions about signalese

What does signalese mean?
Signalese means words and abbreviations used by radio operators and other signalmen to clarify the letters being sent and received, such as the RAF phonetic alphabet.
What part of speech is signalese?
Signalese is a noun.

Words near signalese in the dictionary

  1. signaled
  2. signalee
  3. signalees
  4. signaler
  5. signalers
  6. signalese
  7. signaletic
  8. signaletics
  9. SignalGate
  10. signalgrass
  11. signalhood

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: signalese (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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