signifier

A vocal sound or written symbol. The concept owes its modern formulation to the Swiss linguist Saussare. Rather than using the older conception of sign and referent, he divided the sign itself into two interrelated parts, a signifier and signified. The signified is the concept and the signifier is either a vocal sound or writing. The relation between the two, according to Saussere, is entirely arbitrary, in that signifiers tend to vary with different languages. We can utter to write vache, cow or vaca, depending on our native language, and still come up with the same concept.

"visual dictionary"