significo

Significo, significare, significavi, significatum, first conjugation, and transparently signum plus facio: to make a sign. Of a person it means to indicate or announce, usually with a dative of whoever is being told and an accusative and infinitive for the news. Of a word, an image or a rite it means to mean, and that is the sense medieval grammar and theology hammer flat: the thing meant is the res significata, the meaning itself the significatio.

The passive is a commentator's habit worth recognising on sight - quid per hoc significatur, "what is meant by this" - and reads better as "is meant" than as anything with "signified" in it. English signify, significant, signal and the linguist's signifier all follow the same stem.