Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Of, resembling, relating to, or consisting of a name or names.
- adjective Assigned to or bearing a person's name.
- adjective Existing in name only; not real.
- adjective Insignificantly small; trifling.
- adjective Philosophy Of or relating to nominalism.
- adjective Economics Of or relating to an amount or rate that is not adjusted for inflation.
- adjective Business Of or relating to the par value of a security rather than the market value.
- adjective Grammar Of or relating to a noun or word group that functions as a noun.
- noun A word or group of words functioning as a noun.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Pertaining to a name or term; giving the meaning of a word; verbal: as, a nominal definition.
- Of or pertaining to a noun or substantive.
- Existing in name only; not real; ostensible; merely so called: as, a nominal distinction or difference; a nominal Christian; nominal assets; a nominal price.
- Nominalistic.
- noun A nominalist.
- noun A verb formed from a noun; a denominative.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Of or pertaining to a name or names; having to do with the literal meaning of a word; verbal.
- adjective Existing in name only; not real.
- adjective Insignificant; trifling; -- of prices or costs, as compared with the benefits gained.
- adjective Within acceptable limits; as expected; ; -- used mostly in aviation and space operations.
- noun obsolete A nominalist.
- noun (Gram.) A verb formed from a noun.
- noun A name; an appellation.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Of, resembling, relating to, or consisting of a name or names.
- adjective Assigned to or bearing a person's name.
- adjective Existing in name only.
- adjective philosophy Of or relating to
nominalism . - adjective Insignificantly small;
trifling . - adjective Of or relating to the presumed or approximate value, rather than the actual value.
- adjective finance Of, relating to, or being the amount or face value of a sum of money or a stock certificate, for example, and not the
purchasing power ormarket value . - adjective finance Of, relating to, or being the rate of interest or return without adjustment for compounding or
inflation . - adjective grammar Of or relating to a
noun or word group that functions as a noun. - adjective engineering According to plan or design;
normal . - adjective economics Without adjustment to remove the effects of
inflation ; contrasted withreal . - adjective statistics, of a variable Having values whose order is insignificant.
- noun grammar A
noun or word group that functions as anoun phrase . - noun grammar A part of speech that shares features with nouns and adjectives.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective relating to or constituting or bearing or giving a name
- noun a phrase that can function as the subject or object of a verb
- adjective insignificantly small; a matter of form only (`tokenish' is informal)
- adjective pertaining to a noun or to a word group that functions as a noun
- adjective existing in name only
- adjective of, relating to, or characteristic of an amount that is not adjusted for inflation
- adjective named; bearing the name of a specific person
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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A vote of thanks was passed to little Squire Goodford, the nominal High Sheriff; I say _nominal_, for,
Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. — Volume 3 Henry Hunt 1804
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_ -- It is a rough and ready way of giving some idea of the power of an engine or engines on the basis of the number of inches in the area of the cylinder or cylinders, but when the process of taking the diagram of the engine is gone through the term nominal is dropped, and indicated horse-power is then expressed, because it was proved by actual experiment and certainty.
The Stoker's Catechism W. J. Connor
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It is impossible, therefore, that anything should determine the sorts of things, which we rank under general names, but that idea which that name is designed as a mark for; which is that, as has been shown, which we call nominal essence.
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It is true, I have often mentioned a real essence, distinct in substances from those abstract ideas of them, which I call their nominal essence.
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It is impossible, therefore, that anything should determine the sorts of things, which we rank under general names, but that idea which that name is designed as a mark for; which is that, as has been shown, which we call nominal essence.
God, Aids & Circumcision Hill, George 2005
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RONALD KADISH, BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE ORGANIZATION: The early indications we have is that everything worked in what we call a nominal mode, which is what is expected.
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Cisco has paid the everyday people what it calls a nominal fee for their efforts.
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Because prices were generally falling, previous economists confused the drop in nominal income with a drop in real income.
Matthew Yglesias » Amar Bhide, WSJ Edit Page, Embrace Regular Recurrence of Massive Recessions 2009
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Sayeth The FT: “Yet, at worst, a lengthy slump might be needed to grind out a reduction in nominal prices and wages.”
Matthew Yglesias » Fringe Europe’s Got a Hard Time Coming 2010
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Yet, at worst, a lengthy slump might be needed to grind out a reduction in nominal prices and wages.
Matthew Yglesias » Fringe Europe’s Got a Hard Time Coming 2010
qroqqa commented on the word nominal
Various uses in linguistics (principally as just the adjective of 'noun'), but in CGEL it specifically means a level of structure intermediate between noun and noun phrase: what in the Chomskyan framework is called N'. Adding a determiner to a nominal makes it a noun phrase.
Noun: dog
Nominals: black dog; big black dog; big black dog chewing my slipper
Noun phrase: this big black dog chewing my slipper
May 29, 2009