Saussurean

[ soh-soor-ee-uhn, -syoor- ]

adjective

1. pertaining to or characteristic of the theories of Ferdinand de Saussure, especially the view that a language consists of a network of interrelated elements in contrast.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Saussurean¹

Saussure + -ean

Example Sentences

The underlying logic for the croissant being a crescent, one suspects he would have said, is “Saussurean,” after the great early-twentieth-century linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, who glimpsed the truth that linguistic signs are arbitrary and find their meaning only by being clearly distinguished from other opposing signs.

From The New Yorker

I’m not sure if I share Mizumura’s pessimism regarding the transfer of meaning between tongues—I’m no Saussurean, and while maybe our “rice” can’t capture the mythical freight of the Japanese “ine,” I tend to think sensitive and knowledgeable workarounds can go a long way.

From Slate

I’d just spent four years in a semiotics-heavy critical-studies program that trained me to interpret the world as a system of Saussurean semiotic signs, which, combined with my youth and insecurity, resulted in a somewhat morbid tendency to take pop culture very, very personally.

From New York Times