Sign

How to spell sign

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce sign

What does sign mean?

1. nounA board, notice, or symbol that conveys information or instruction.
2. verbTo write one's name on a document to authorise or agree to it.

Sign in a sentence

• noun

  A large sign above the door listed the opening hours.

• verb

  Please sign the contract on the final page.

• noun

  The road sign warned drivers of the sharp bend ahead.

• verb

  Both parties had to sign before the deal was valid.

Where does sign come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin signum, which meant a mark, a token, or a standard, including the military banner that Roman legions carried into battle. From that core idea of a visible mark that stood for something else, the word passed into Old French as signe and arrived in English during the 1200s. Early uses already spanned a wide range: a gesture, an emblem, a symptom of disease, and a portent in the heavens. The silent g, which is the spelling trap, was kept from the Latin signum even though English speakers stopped pronouncing it; you can still hear that g sound returning in related forms such as signal, signature, and designate. Because the g is preserved by family resemblance rather than by sound, remembering those relatives is the surest way to keep it in place.

How the word is built

• sign (from Latin signum: mark, token)

Words that sound like sign

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• sine: In trigonometry, the ratio of the side opposite an angle to the hypotenuse in a right-angled triangle.