- 1
To create a sign out of something.
- 2
To give (something) a meaning or an importance.
- 3
To show one’s intentions with a sign etc.; to indicate, announce, or portend.
- I’ll to the king; and signify to him / That thus I have resign’d my charge to you.
- For it seemeth to me unreasonable to send a prisoner, and not withal to signify the crimes laid against him.
- 4
To mean; to betoken.
- Life’s […] a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.
- Mrs Varden was a lady of what is commonly called an uncertain temper—a phrase which being interpreted signifies a temper tolerably certain to make everybody more or less uncomfortable.
- 5
To make a difference; to matter (in negative or interrogative expressions).
- To be but in the company of those we love, satisfies us: it does not signify whether we speak to ’em or not, whether we think on them or on indifferent things. To be near ’em is all.
- VVell ſays I, and are you thus eaſy? ay, ſays ſhe, I can’t help myſelf, vvhat ſignifyes being ſad? If I am hang’d there’s an End of me, ſays ſhe, and avvay ſhe turns Dancing, and Sings as ſhe goes, […]
syn. mean · betoken · import