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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

nominal.

Of, resembling, relating to, or consisting of a name or names.

7 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ˈnɒm.ɪ.nl̩/Received-Pronunciation[ˈnɒm.ɪ.nl̩]Received-Pronunciation/ˈnɑ.mɪ.nl̩/Canada, US[ˈnɑ.mɪ.nl̩]Canada, US
  1. Of, resembling, relating to, or consisting of a name or names.

    not-comparable
  2. Assigned to or bearing a person's name.

    not-comparable
  3. Existing in name only.

    not-comparable
    a nominal difference
  4. Of or relating to nominalism.

    not-comparable
  5. Insignificantly small.

    not-comparable
    He gave me only a nominal sum for my services.
  6. Of or relating to the presumed or approximate value, rather than the actual value.

    not-comparable
    The nominal voltage is 1.5 V, but the actual figure is usually higher.
    the nominal yield of a nuclear weapon
  7. 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 or market value.

    not-comparable
  8. Of, relating to, or being the rate of interest or return without adjustment for compounding or inflation.

    not-comparable
  9. Of or relating to a noun or word group that functions as a noun.

    not-comparable
    This sentence contains a nominal phrase.
  10. According to plan or design.

    not-comparable
    We'll just do a nominal flight check.
    Apart from the slightly high temperature, all the readings from the spacecraft are nominal.
  11. Without adjustment to remove the effects of inflation.

    not-comparable
    My employer does not understand how low my nominal wage is.
    The nominal GNP of this country is pretty low.
  12. Having values whose order is insignificant.

    not-comparable
  13. Of a species, the species name without consideration of whether it is a junior synonym or in reality consists of more than one biological species.

    not-comparable
Where this word comes from

PIE word *h₁nómn̥ Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₁nómn̥ Proto-Italic *nōmn̥ Latin nōmen Proto-Indo-European *h₂el- Proto-Indo-European *-is Proto-Indo-European *h₂élisder.? Proto-Italic *-ālis Latin -ālis Latin nōminālisder. Middle English nominalle English nominal From the Middle English nominalle (“of nouns”), borrowed from Latin nōminālis (“of names”), ultimately from oblique stem of Latin nōmen, nōminis (“name”) + -al.

noun/ˈnɒm.ɪ.nl̩/Received-Pronunciation[ˈnɒm.ɪ.nl̩]Received-Pronunciation/ˈnɑ.mɪ.nl̩/Canada, US[ˈnɑ.mɪ.nl̩]Canada, US
  1. A noun or word group that functions as part of a noun phrase.

    This sentence contains two nominals.
  2. A part of speech that shares features with nouns and adjectives. (Depending on the language, it may comprise nouns, adjectives, possibly numerals, pronouns, and participles.)

  3. A number (usually natural) used like a name; a numeric code or identifier. (See nominal number on Wikipedia.)

    Numeric codes of characters used in programming are nominals.
  4. A person listed in the Police National Computer database as having been convicted, cautioned or recently arrested.

    UK · jargon
Where this word comes from

PIE word *h₁nómn̥ Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₁nómn̥ Proto-Italic *nōmn̥ Latin nōmen Proto-Indo-European *h₂el- Proto-Indo-European *-is Proto-Indo-European *h₂élisder.? Proto-Italic *-ālis Latin -ālis Latin nōminālisder. Middle English nominalle English nominal From the Middle English nominalle (“of nouns”), borrowed from Latin nōminālis (“of names”), ultimately from oblique stem of Latin nōmen, nōminis (“name”) + -al.

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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.