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say it: sahyn
sign is a noun, verb and adjective meaning "a perceptible indication of something not immediately apparent (as a visible clue that something has happened)". It is pronounced /ˈsaɪn/ — sahyn. It carries 20 recorded senses.
any nonverbal action or gesture that encodes a message
“signals from the boat suddenly stopped”
structure displaying a board on which advertisements can be posted
“the highway was lined with signboards”
(medicine) any objective evidence of the presence of a disorder or disease
“there were no signs of asphyxiation”
medicine
having an indicated pole (as the distinction between positive and negative electric charges)
“he got the polarity of the battery reversed”
“charges of opposite sign”
an event that is experienced as indicating important things to come
“he hoped it was an augury”
“it was a sign from God”
a gesture that is part of a sign language
a fundamental linguistic unit linking a signifier to that which is signified
“The bond between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary”
linguistics
a character indicating a relation between quantities
“don't forget the minus sign”
engage by written agreement
“They signed two new pitchers for the next season”
communicate silently and non-verbally by signals or signs
“He signed his disapproval with a dismissive hand gesture”
“The diner signaled the waiters to bring the menu”
communicate in sign language
“I don't know how to sign, so I could not communicate with my deaf cousin”
make the sign of the cross over someone in order to call on God for protection; consecrate
used of the language of the deaf
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for sign come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.