Meaning

verb be a signal for or a symptom of

verb indicate by signs

originFrom Middle English bitoknen, bitacnen, from Old English betācnian (“to betoken, signify, designate”), from Proto-West Germanic *bitaiknijan. Equivalent to be- + token. Cognate with Dutch betekenen (“to mean, signify”), German bezeichnen (“to call, designate”), Swedish beteckna (“to represent, designate, indicate”) and Danish betegne (“to represent, designate, indicate”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0