the high sign

high sign

A hand gesture used to signal someone about something. Sometimes, it refers specifically to the "OK" gesture (when the tip of the index finger and thumb touch, forming a circle). I'll give you the high sign when it's time to come out on stage.
See also: high, sign
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

*the high sign

Fig. a prearranged signal for going ahead with something. (Often refers to a hand signal or some other visual signal. *Typically: get ~; give someone ~.) When I got the high sign, I pulled cautiously out into the roadway. The train's engineer got the high sign and began to move the train out of the station.
See also: high, sign
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • high sign
  • give (someone) the high sign
  • get the high sign
  • comp
  • beckon
  • beckon to
  • beckon to (one)
  • air quotes
  • quote
  • the thumbs up/down
References in periodicals archive
His accomplice, Sharp, would give the high sign out the window when a potential target wandered into a stall.
Aggie Years Launched Perry -- and a Rivalry
Chelsea are the superior team but are badly missing their wide players and Liverpool have had the high sign on their London rivals in recent games.
Football: Cash divide makes stopping Old Firm almost impossible
But in its on-key depiction of daily life that goes on under any circumstances, it largely lives up to its credentials, which include winning the 2005 Sundance/NHK award for best European project and getting the high sign from Martin Scorsese and Wim Wenders, who are listed as associate producers.
How I Spent the End of the World
Dana Stevens (aka Liz Penn) writes on television for Slate.com and on film and culture for the High Sign.
The bachelors
They would come to my house on their weekly visits to the city, give me the high sign, and I would slip them their copies of the Chicago Defender, the Indianapolis Freeman or the Voice of the Negro.
"Make My Getaway": The Blues Lives of Black Minstrels in W. C. Handy's Father of the Blues
Among the albums often cited by critics is "This Land," a pair of recordings of music he composed for three silent Buster Keaton films: "The High Sign," "One Week" and "Go West."
Guitarists take WOW stage