The Commens Dictionary

Quote from ‘Essays on Meaning. Preface’

A Sign […] is anything which represents something else, its Object, to any mind that can Interpret it so. More explicitly, the Sign is something that appears, in place of its Object, which does not appear for itself, (at least, not in the respect in which the Sign appears;) so that the Sign […] is, as it were, the species, or appearance, virtually or figuratively speaking, emanating from the Object, and capable of producing upon an intelligent being an effect that will […] be called the Interpretant of the Sign, and effect which is recognized as due, in some sense[,] to the Object; and it is in producing the Interpretant so that it is referred to the Object, that the Sign fulfills the function its fitness for which constitutes it a “Sign.”