signal

1. 1.

   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”

   Synonymssignsignalizesignalise

   Broadercommunicate

   Narrowerwigwagsemaphoreheliographflagwhistle
2. 2.

   be a signal for or a symptom of

   “These symptoms indicate a serious illness”

   “Her behavior points to a severe neurosis”

   “The economic indicators signal that the euro is undervalued”

   Synonymsbespeakbetokenindicatepoint

   Broadertell

   Narrowerbodemark

1. 1.

   notably out of the ordinary

   “the year saw one signal triumph for the Labour party”

   Similarimpressive

Other forms of signal

plural

signals·

past tense or participle

signalled

present participle

signalling

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.

Questions about signal

What does signal mean?

signal means "any nonverbal action or gesture that encodes a message". That is the primary sense; the word has 6 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in signal?

signal has 2 syllables: sig-nal. The stress falls on "sig". In IPA it is /ˈsɪɡnəl/.

What is another word for signal?

Close synonyms include signaling, sign, sign, signalize, signalise. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is signal a common word?

signal is banded "Core" — among the few thousand words that carry most english. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.