Definition of "signified"

Here things are getting better and better for women and people of color, and gay men and lesbians, more and more integrated and open, and all you can think about is some stupid, lame problem with signifiers and signifieds.

2001, Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections

In Peircean terms, topics are interpretants: signifieds that become new signifiers in the endless semiotic chain of interpretations.

2012, Esti Sheinberg, Music Semiotics, page 9