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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

namesake.

An entity that lends its name to another entity.

8 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈneɪmseɪk/
  1. An entity that lends its name to another entity.

  2. An entity that lends its name to another entity. A person with the same name as another.

    The statesman Winston Churchill has a namesake, the American novelist Winston Churchill.
  3. An entity that lends its name to another entity. A person with the same name as another. One who is named after another, often a child named after the parent or an ancestor.

    Bill Sr's namesake, Bill Jr, is 30 years younger.
  4. An entity that lends its name to another entity. A person with the same name as another. One for whom another is named, often the parent or ancestor who gave the name to a child.

    Bill Jr's namesake, Bill Sr, is 30 years older.
  5. Something (especially a ship, a building, or a medical condition, symptom, or sign) that is named after someone or something.

    broadly
Where this word comes from

Mid-17th century. Equivalent to name + sake. From the phrase “for (one's) name's sake”, first found in Bible translations as a rendering of a Calque of Hebrew לְמַעַן שְׁמוֹ (l'má'an sh'mó) idiom meaning “to protect one's reputation” or possibly “vouched for by one's reputation”. A familiar example is in Psalm 23:3.

verb/ˈneɪmseɪk/
  1. To name (somebody) after somebody else.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

Mid-17th century. Equivalent to name + sake. From the phrase “for (one's) name's sake”, first found in Bible translations as a rendering of a Calque of Hebrew לְמַעַן שְׁמוֹ (l'má'an sh'mó) idiom meaning “to protect one's reputation” or possibly “vouched for by one's reputation”. A familiar example is in Psalm 23:3.

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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.