semaphore

She taught semaphore - a visual signaling method allowing information to be conveyed at a distance - to troops ahead of D-Day and helped to test the Mulberry Harbours used in the invasion.

From BBC ● Sep. 13, 2024

That meant learning semaphore to send messages during the day and Morse code for nighttime communications.

From Seattle Times ● May 30, 2024

For him, “Underneath the Skin” is a semaphore that signals a presence now too easy to forget.

From New York Times ● Dec. 1, 2022

As Meher Mirza wrote for Saveur, "the word 'curry' is sometimes used in the West as a familiar semaphore, but the term ossifies the immense sophistication and complexity of Indian food."

From Salon ● Sep. 12, 2021

He’s doing pretend semaphore, waving his arms in ornate patterns as if I’m supposed to understand some kind of secret code.

From "We Were Liars" by E. Lockhart

Today, to help relative newcomers navigate potential April Fool’s foibles, our crack “Now & Then” team shares some quirky codes and stubborn semaphores from “Then” days that persist in the “Now.”

From Seattle Times ● Mar. 30, 2023

It undermines the piety and ethical lapses in nonfiction mystery shows, while sharing with “Three Billboards” a belief in semaphores and that people aren’t any one thing.

From New York Times ● Jan. 18, 2018

But he can slay without words: His eyebrows are semaphores, his left hand a weapon that can dismiss a subject with a quiver.

From Washington Post ● May 24, 2016

The kids on Bandstand mimicked its manual semaphores and danced to its perky rhythm, eerily similar to Bo Diddley’s signature chugging backbeat.

From Time ● Jan. 19, 2012

Enrique's Journey Then he sees switches and semaphores.

From "Enrique's Journey" by Sonia Nazario

The start of today’s race has been semaphored and a group of six riders have attacked off the front of the bunch.

From The Guardian ● Jul. 11, 2019

With these ones ripped up and destroyed, and made into something else entirely, they perhaps semaphored a new era.

From The Guardian ● Sep. 9, 2014

Elsewhere in the opening episode nothing happened that wasn't first semaphored in the previous scene.

From The Guardian ● Feb. 27, 2011

Then, languidly raising his hairy legs and wagging them like flags, the old hand semaphored a request for jam to a pal in the port mizzen.

From Time Magazine Archive

A sailor semaphored with his arms, and the commander of the mine-sweeper sent a message back, and the submarine passed slowly on her way.

From Some Naval Yarns by Mordaunt Hall

She’s waving from the other bank, not semaphoring.

From The Guardian ● Nov. 12, 2017

Even taskmaster Guardiola was spied clapping on the touchline at one point instead of being his usual manic semaphoring self.

From The Guardian ● Nov. 5, 2016

Apple employees may not talk much, but they’ve been semaphoring pretty furiously lately.

From Forbes ● Jul. 8, 2011

At the same time, audacious native-born stage directors like Peter Sellars and Francesca Zambello have replaced the old histrionic semaphoring with bold, psychologically penetrating productions starring fine singing actors like June Anderson and James Morris.

From Time Magazine Archive

I half expected to see the few remaining insects circling him and semaphoring their romantic intentions.

From "The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate" by Jacqueline Kelly