vague, highly variable, unspecifiable or non-existent signified". The concept of floating signifiers originates with Claude Lévi-Strauss, who identified cultural ideas like mana as "represent[ing] an undetermined quantity of signification, in itself void of meaning and thus apt to receive any meaning".

As such, a "floating signifier" may "mean different things to different people: they may stand for many or even any signifieds; they