{
  "id": "sign.symbolic",
  "term": "sign",
  "sense": "symbolic",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "review",
  "level": 11,
  "arena": "sign",
  "domain": "everyday",
  "style": null,
  "definition": "A visual mark that conveys meaning through regularity of form.",
  "folk_gloss": null,
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "marks.visual",
      "meaning.significance",
      "pattern.regularity",
      "mean.signify",
      "show.visual",
      "visual.perceptual"
    ],
    "interaction": "A visual mark with regular form interacts with perceptual and semantic faculties to signify meaning.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "symbolic interpretation",
      "visual significance",
      "regular pattern recognition"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "The equal sign '=' in mathematics, standardized by Robert Recorde in 1557, replaced verbose phrasing with a consistent visual mark.",
      "domain": "mathematics"
    },
    {
      "text": "The red octagonal 'STOP' sign, mandated by the 1922 Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, standardized road safety across the U.S.",
      "domain": "engineering"
    },
    {
      "text": "The swastika, used for millennia as a religious symbol, acquired new meaning through its regular use by Nazi Germany from 1930 onward.",
      "domain": "institutions"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [],
  "used_by": [
    "brand.marketing",
    "credit.financial",
    "culture.social",
    "language.communication",
    "logo.branding"
  ],
  "forms": [
    "sign",
    "signed",
    "signing",
    "signs"
  ],
  "closed": false,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "openrouter:openai/gpt-oss-120b",
    "date": "2026-07-29",
    "confidence": 0.6,
    "reconciled": {
      "by": "openrouter:qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b-2507",
      "date": "2026-07-31",
      "changed": "factual",
      "note": "Original definition omitted key semantic and perceptual dependencies; revised to align with constitutive components and correct representational scope."
    }
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-sign.symbolic"
}