Definitions

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun the actual object referred to by a linguistic expression.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun linguistics, philosophy Something that is denoted; a referent.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an actual object referred to by a linguistic expression

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin

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Examples

  • For Deleuze as for Frege, sense is what is expressed in a proposition; the two senses of “morning star” and “evening star” are two ways in which the same denotatum may be expressed in propositions.

    Gilles Deleuze Smith, Daniel 2008

  • Turning to dysphemism, the authors provide the following definition: an expression with connotations that are offensive either about the denotatum or to the audience, or both, and it is substituted for a neutral or euphemistic expression for just that reason. [p. 26]

    VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol XIX No 1 1992

  • In the first part, I am not sure that one can say that there is anything "offensive" about a denotatum: Is there anything inherently offensive?

    VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol XIX No 1 1992

  • Surely, the criterion of capitalization is trivial, and, frankly, Grover Cleveland is of much less interest to me than phoenix; yet his name appears as a word in the language, a denotatum, if you want to get technical about it, and there is no justification for omitting his name

    VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol XI No 2 1984

  • ; d i e m, quo quidem infigne allquld is fafturus flt feceritue, hac denotatum plirafi iii afitlqulore S. codice reperias.

    Ioh. Aspontani ad Rud. Plimmelium de deitate Iesu Christi [microform] : epistolae quatuor Aspontanus, Joh 1789

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