Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Of or having the function of an index.
- adjective Linguistics Deictic.
- noun A deictic word or element.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Having the form of an index; pertaining to an index.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Of, pertaining to, or like, an index; having the form of an index.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Of, pertaining to, or like, an
index ; having theform of an index. - adjective linguistics, philosophy Having the character of pointing to, or
indicating , a particular state of affairs - noun linguistics, philosophy An indexical statement
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective of or relating to or serving as an index
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Because of course, while fake documentaries are largely scripted, staged, and performed, as is true for all of contemporary "reality" programming, there is also, always, a tiny bit or residue or trace of the actual person, place, or conversation what semioticians call the indexical also caught in every single faked frame.
Alexandra Juhasz: Casey Affleck's Biggest Reveal: Fake Doc, Joaquin's Tummy or Tranny Prostitutes? Alexandra Juhasz 2010
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The referent of the utterance of the indexical is the referent of the relevant definite description.
Again 2009
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Moreover, Peirce handled the notion of indexical reference under the heading of speculative grammar and not under the heading of speculative rhetoric, whereas the topic certainly belongs to Morris's pragmatics.
Nobody Knows Nothing 2009
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Her two "indexical" pieces – AG Indexical with a little help from HM (2006) and RoS Indexical (2007) – cheekily refer to (or "index") Balanchine's Agon and Nijinsky's Rite of Spring respectively, peppered with other references such as the Pink Panther theme, bowling and tennis, Marx-brothers pratfalls and – perhaps inevitably – Trio A.
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"Sexually explicit" functions as a kind of indexical term, picking out different features depending on what has certain effects or breaks certain taboos in different contexts and cultures.
Pornography and Censorship West, Caroline 2004
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The word "you" is an indexical, meaning it points out of the proposition at something in the world, but depending on where the proposition is said - or, in this case, by whom it's read - the meaning expressed changes.
Big Ideas Master Site Feed admin 2010
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In just seven unneccesarily complicated steps, you too can learn how to transform a "weightless virtual commodity into a lovingly handmade piece of artisanal craftwork fated to collapse into its own meta-indexical core like the semiotic black hole it is."
Boing Boing 2009
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Continuing disagreement over the identity of the smartest person in the room, clearly a dire case of indexical humorous bias ...
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It is sadly ironic that, given the subtlety and complexity of his art's extended engagement with the interplay between cinema as a succession of indexical photographic signs and cinema as fictional representation, Godard's art is regularly reduced to a simple-minded philosophy defining cinema exclusively in terms of its roots in the former.
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Note 17: In previous studies of the studioli, the subject of memory and its influence on the late quattrocento mind (and architecture) does not appear as a topic or as an indexical term for cross-reference. back
Architecture and Memory: The Renaissance Studioli of Federico da Montefeltro 2008
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