sonsign

S1O1N1S1I1G2N1

noun

Particularly in Gilles Deleuze's cinematic philosophy, a pure sound that exists independently of any immediate action or narrative progression.

Scrabble 8

Meanings

nounsonsign (plural sonsigns)

plural sonsigns

  1. film theoryParticularly in Gilles Deleuze's cinematic philosophy, a pure sound that exists independently of any immediate action or narrative progression.

    Opsigns and sonsigns are direct presentation of time.

    2009 July, Irini Stamatopoulos, “Time as visualized by the cinematic medium”, in offscreen, volume 13, number 7
    2 more examples

    By presenting purely optical and sound situations in which no action is involved, opsigns and sonsigns place time at the centre of the cinematic image.

    2015 November 10, Marcello Garibbo, “Deleuze’s Philosophy of Cinema: Reflections on Subjectivity, Images, and Visual Artworks”, in THE DARK PRECURSOR International Conference on Deleuze and Artistic Research: DARE 2015 / Orpheus Institute / Ghent / Belgium / 9-11 November 2015

    Thus, instead of what Deleuze had described as perception-images, affection-images, action-images, and mental images (all types of movement-image), there are now “opsigns” and “sonsigns” which resist movement-image differentiation.

    2025 February 9, Wikipedia contributors, “Cinema 2: The Time-Image”, in English Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation

Origin

Rhymes & wordplay

Anagrams

Cite this entry
APA

sonsign. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sonsign

MLA

“sonsign.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sonsign. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “sonsign,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sonsign.

Source: sonsign on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.