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denotation.

The act of denoting, or something (such as a symbol) that denotes

10 characters4 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˌdiː.noʊˈteɪ.ʃən/US
  1. The act of denoting, or something (such as a symbol) that denotes

    countable · uncountable
  2. The primary, surface, literal, or explicit meaning of a signifier such as a word, phrase, or symbol; that which a word denotes, as contrasted with its connotation; the aggregate or set of objects of which a word may be predicated.

    countable · uncountable
    The denotations of the two expressions "the morning star" and "the evening star" are the same (i.e. both expressions denote the planet Venus), but their connotations are different.
  3. The intension and extension of a word

    countable · uncountable
  4. Something signified or referred to; a particular meaning of a symbol

    countable · uncountable
  5. Any mathematical object which describes the meanings of expressions from the languages, formalized in the theory of denotational semantics

    countable · uncountable
  6. A first level of analysis: what the audience can visually see on a page. Denotation often refers to something literal, and avoids being a metaphor.

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

From Late Latin dēnotātiō, from Latin dēnotāre (“to denote, mark out”) + -tiō (suffix forming nouns of action), from dē- (“completely”) + notāre (“to mark”); equivalent to denote + -ation.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.