Master-signifier

[Gregory]

In Lacanian theory, a signifier which stops the [slippage] of the signified under the signifier and fixes meaning, thereby forming a stable symbolic order. It is a particular signifier with no signified of its own, which stands in for the fullness of the meaning of the symbolic system itself. However, since contingency and lack are taken to be primary in Lacanian theory, it is necessarily arbitrary and is unable to guarantee its own [primacy] except through arbitrary and ungrounded violence. It is always haunted by the [return of the Real].