semantic: [17] Sēma was the Greek word for ‘sign’. It has been widely pressed into service in the modern European languages for coining new terms, including semaphore [19] (a borrowing from French, which etymologically means ‘signal-carrier’), semasiology [19] (a German coinage), and semiology [17]. The adjective derived from sēma was semantikós which reached English via French sémantique. It was fleetingly adopted in the mid-17th century as a word for ‘interpreting the ‘signs’ of weather’, but it did not come into its own as a linguistic term until the end of the 19th century. => semaphore, semiology
1894, from French sémantique, applied by Michel Bréal (1883) to the psychology of language, from Greek semantikos "significant," from semainein "to show by sign, signify, point out, indicate by a sign," from sema "sign, mark, token; omen, portent; constellation; grave" (Doric sama), from PIE root *dheie- "to see, look" (cognates: Sanskrit dhyati "he meditates;" see zen).
