Meaning

A meaning is a relation between signs and entities.

A meaning is not the same thing as the entity that it represents.

For example, the word "city" is a sign that represents a concept without any specific physical counterpart in the world. The word "Beijing", however, is also a sign, but one that has a specific physical entity that it represents.

Regardless of this distinction, neither the word "city" nor the word "Beijing" are themselves cities. They are words, and the city itself could be renamed tomorrow just like it was already called Jicheng, Yanjing, Zhongdu, and Daidu, not to mention all five are mere transliterations of Chinese and Mongolian words.