Crossword Dictionary
signs
sign - n
a public display of a message; "he posted signs in all the shop windows"
While signs are usually less germane to the development of words than signals, most of them contain greater amounts of meaning of and by themselves. Ashley Montagu, an anthropologist, has defined a sign as a “concrete denoter†possessing an inherent specific meaning, roughly analogous to the sentence “This is it; do something about it!†The most common signs encountered in daily life are pictures or drawings, although a human posture like a clenched fist, an outstretched arm, or a hand posed in a “stop†gesture may also serve as signs. The main difference between a sign and a signal is that a sign (like a policeman’s badge) contains meanings of an intrinsic nature; a signal (like a scream for help) is merely a device by which one is able to formulate extrinsic meanings. Their difference is illustrated by the observation that many types of animals respond to signals while only a few intelligent and trained animals (usually dogs and apes) are competent to respond to even simple signs.