promise vs signal

promise

noun
  • an oath or affirmation; a vow 

  • A transaction between two persons whereby the first person undertakes in the future to render some service or gift to the second person or devotes something valuable now and here to his use. 

  • A placeholder object representing the eventual result of an asynchronous operation. 

  • Reason to expect improvement or success; potential. 

verb
  • To commit to (some action or outcome), or to assure (a person) of such commitment; to make an oath or vow. 

  • To give grounds for expectation, especially of something good. 

signal

noun
  • A token; an indication; a foreshadowing; a sign. 

  • A signalling interaction between cells 

  • An electromagnetic action, normally a voltage that is a function of time, that conveys the information of the radio or TV program or of communication with another party. 

  • Any variation of a quantity or change in an entity over time that conveys information upon detection. 

  • An on-off light, semaphore, or other device used to give an indication to another person. 

  • A simple interprocess communication used to notify a process or thread of an occurrence. 

  • Useful information, as opposed to noise. 

  • An action, change or process done to convey information and thus reduce uncertainty. 

  • A sign made to give notice of some occurrence, command, or danger, or to indicate the start of a concerted action. 

  • A sequence of states representing an encoded message in a communication channel. 

verb
  • To communicate with (a person or system) by a signal. 

  • To indicate; to convey or communicate by a signal. 

adj
  • Standing above others in rank, importance, or achievement. 

How often have the words promise and signal occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )