signify

Ms. Gaul tellingly zeros in on her interviewees’ sense of the term as signifying “a contrast to anything imported as well as anything produced industrially or on a mass scale.”

“Just all the pain, all the suffering, all the longing, all the workouts, all the late nights, all the no-love, no-opportunity, that run signified the release of that,” his father said.

The incident was declared a four-alarm fire — signifying a catastrophic blaze that requires the mobilization of significant fire department resources — due to the scale of the structure and the hazardous materials involved.

If the girl was able to chomp down on her desired apple on the first try, that signified that she was destined to be with her sweetheart.

It’s hard to know what any of this signifies, other than that atheism is too boring to hold the attention of literate people for more than a few years at a time.