Definition of "signor" []

• Used as a courtesy title for a man in an Italian-speaking area, equivalent to Mr. (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.

• "The signor is a good friend of the young milord and miladi? "questioned the landlord, deferentially, but very anxiously; for just then it flashed upon his memory that two years previous another grand" signor, "of reverend age like this one, had come inquiring about the young pair, and had ended in breaking up their union for the time."
• "His father was only rarely called "signor," despite the fact that in recent years Cristoforo's earnings had allowed Domenico Colombo to prosper, moving the weaving shop to larger quarters and wearing finer clothing and riding a horse like a gentleman and buying a few small houses outside the city walls so he could play the landlord."
• "I have been lucky, thus far and both places I rented did not require the signor, but most do."