semaphore
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈsɛm.əˌfɔː/
ipa: /ˈsɛm.əˌfoɹ/
Forms: form: semaphores
form: semaphoring
form: semaphored
form: semaphored
Etymology: The noun is borrowed from French sémaphore, from Ancient Greek σῆμα (sêma, “mark, sign, token”) + French -phore (from Ancient Greek -φόρος (-phóros, suffix indicating a bearer or carrier)). By surface analysis, sema- + -phore.
The verb is derived from the noun.
Senses: examples: text: The person intending to Semaphore will make the International Code Signal VOX (I am going to Semaphore to you), and set his Semaphore at the alphabetical sign [...] with the Indicator out, and wait until the person to whom the Semaphore signal is to be made hoists his answering pennant close up. [...] The British method of Semaphoring by flags held in the hand which is shown in plate VIII is exactly the same as the British Movable Semaphore system, which has just been explained, the positions of the apparatus which denote the letters, numbers, and special signs being, it will be seen, identical in each case, and the only difference being in the apparatus employed.
ref: 1907, United States Hydrographic Office, “Distant Signals”, in International Code of Signals, American edition, Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, →OCLC, part III, page 539:
text: These gunny-sack chaps are not animals or savages. Look, Henry! They are semaphoring! See that tree there, and that big one across the cañon. Watch the branches wave.
ref: 1920 September, Jack London, chapter X, in Hearts of Three, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC, page 137:
text: Minutes later, unseen by the defenders, he semaphored back across the valley that he was going to make a fresh attempt.
ref: 1990, Peter Hopkirk, “The Climactic Years”, in The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia, London: John Murray, →ISBN; republished Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 2001, →ISBN, page 478:
text: Near the concession stand on the east side of the park, she saw two familiar figures sitting on a bench in the shade of a large oak. Her father hailed her, wildly semaphoring with his hot dog.
ref: 2008, Elizabeth Elwood, “Gilda Died for Love”, in A Black Tie Affair: And Other Mystery Stories, Lincoln, Neb.: iUniverse, →ISBN, page 113:
text: He can't hear what they're saying, but Jake is making angry movements with his hands and his taut posture semaphores, even to Daniel, his distinct displeasure.
ref: 2011, Heather Menzies Jones, chapter 25, in NanoMan, [Morrisville, N.C.]: Lulu.com, →ISBN, page 133:
text: [Barack] Obama doesn't merely evince blackness; he uses his blackness to signal and court African Americans, semaphoring in a cultural dialect of our creation—crooning Al Green at the Apollo, name-checking Young Jeezy, regularly appearing on the cover of black magazines, weighing the merits of Jay-Z versus Kanye West, being photographed in the White House with a little black boy touching his hair.
ref: 2012 September, Ta-Nehisi Coates, “Fear of a Black President”, in James Bennet, editor, The Atlantic, Washington, D.C.: The Atlantic Monthly Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 03 Jan 2020:
glosses: To signal using, or as if using, a semaphore, with the implication that it is done nonverbally.
Derived terms: word: semaphoring