Definition of "sign language" []

• A language that uses a system of manual, facial, and other body movements as the means of communication, especially among deaf people. (noun)
• A method of communication, as between speakers of different languages, that uses hand movements and other gestures. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Indeed, at one time it was believed that the best way for them to communicate was through systematized gestures, the sign language invented by the Abbé de l'Epée."
• "The other remembered Bones 'experience with the Nomads for the last several years; it knew Earrin and Kahvi and their child; it would, on meeting any of them, be able to use the sign language which they and Bones had worked out to supplement oral speech, and it would understand human words as well as Bones, with the same auditory limitations, could."
• "Judy always wore it…a gold chain with a charm displaying the two-finger-and-thumb sign language symbol for “I love you.”"