Siglum
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A letter or other symbol that stands for a name or word; specifically, one used in a modern literary work to refer to an early version of a text.
- 2 a sign, abbreviation, letter, or character standing for words in ancient manuscripts or on coins or medals. wordnet
- 3 A thing which represents something else; a sign, a symbol. figuratively
"[H]e emerged onto a garden terrace where on the soft red sand one could make out the sigla of a summer day: the imprints of a dog's paws, the beaded tracks of a wagtail, the Dunlop stripe left by Tanya's bicycle, […]"
Example
More examples"[H]e emerged onto a garden terrace where on the soft red sand one could make out the sigla of a summer day: the imprints of a dog's paws, the beaded tracks of a wagtail, the Dunlop stripe left by Tanya's bicycle, […]"
Etymology
Learned borrowing from Late Latin siglum (“abbreviation”), possibly a contracted form of: * sigillum (“figurine, statuette; seal”), from signum (“figure, statue; seal, signet; mark, sign”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *sek- (“to cut, sever; to cut off”) or *sekʷ- (“to follow”)) + -ulum (diminutive suffix); or * singulum, a singular form of singulus (“apiece; every; single”, adjective), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *sem- (“one; together”). The plural form sigla is a learned borrowing from Late Latin sigla.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.