1923 B. Karlgren Analyt. Dict. Chinese & Sino-Japanese 1 I never use the term ‘radical’, as it wrongly conveys the idea of ‘radix, racine, root’ which is quite a different notion in general philology from that of signific: the meaning indicating part in the Chinese character.

1948 R. A. D. Forrest Chinese Lang. ii. 38 The signific element in each case [sc. a character] denotes, or, more commonly, merely suggests, an order of ideas to which the meaning of the whole belongs.

1973 Sci. Amer. Feb. 54/2 When the ‘horse’ phonetic is combined with the signific for ‘jade’, we have mă, which means ‘agate’.

2001 R. Fischer Hist. of Writing (2003) v. 176 The semantic-phonetic compounds–that is, characters that have a signific for sense and phonetic for sound.

1795 T. Wilkinson Wandering Patentee III. 123 He who prognosticated with signific face what will be right and must be wrong, proves his wisdom when it turns out as he authoritatively prognosticated.

1837 Millenial Harbinger May 218 They..laid before them the items of their commission, presenting infallible proofs of their mission by the displays of almightiness which attended every signific movement of the rod of God.

1903 Lady Welby What is Meaning? i. 7 It may be suggested that physical science—at present the dominant source of discovery by interpretation—best represents the signific attitude.

1951 Philos. Sci. 18 262 The ‘Signific Movement’ in the Netherlands has from the beginning sought for a systematic investigation of the human means of understanding.

2001 Bull. Systematic Logic 7 64 Van Dalen's biography contains extensive descriptions of a philosophical circle Brouwer took part in, the ‘signific circle.’