"master signifier" meaning in English

See master signifier in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: master signifiers [plural]
Etymology: Calque of French signifiant-maître as used by French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. Etymology templates: {{calque|en|fr|signifiant-maître}} Calque of French signifiant-maître Head templates: {{en-noun}} master signifier (plural master signifiers)
  1. (sociology, philosophy) A signifier, i.e. a linguistic sign, with no determinate content beyond itself, serving as a nodal point dominating and grounding the content of a chain of other signifiers. Wikipedia link: Jacques Lacan Categories (topical): Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, Sociology Synonyms: Master-Signifier, master-signifier
    Sense id: en-master_signifier-en-noun-b1mPK55o Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry Topics: human-sciences, philosophy, sciences, social-science, sociology

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-09-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-08-20 using wiktextract (8e41825 and f99c758). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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