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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

reference.

A relationship or relation (to something).

9 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈɹɛf.(ə.)ɹəns/Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation[ˈɹɛf.ɹn̩s]Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈɹɛf.ə.ɹɛns/obsolete/ˈɹef.(ə.)ɹəns/Australia, New-Zealand

  1. A relationship or relation (to something).

    archaic · countable · literary · uncountable

  2. A measurement one can compare (some other measurement) to.

    countable · uncountable

  3. Information about a person, provided by someone (a referee) with whom they are well acquainted.

    countable · uncountable

  4. A person who provides this information; a referee.

    US · countable · especially · uncountable

  5. A reference work.

    attributive · countable · often · uncountable
    reference grammar
    Reference Dictionary of Linguistics

  6. The act of referring: a submitting for information or decision.

    countable · uncountable

  7. A relation between objects in which one object designates, or acts as a means by which to connect to or link to, another object.

    countable · uncountable

  8. A short written identification of a previously published work which is used as a source for a text.

    countable · literary · uncountable

  9. A previously published written work thus indicated; a source.

    countable · literary · uncountable

  10. An object containing information which refers to data stored elsewhere, as opposed to containing the data itself.

    countable · uncountable

  11. A special sequence used to represent complex characters in markup languages, such as ™ for the ™ symbol.

    countable · uncountable

  12. Appeal.

    countable · obsolete · uncountable
Where this word comes from

From Middle French référence, from Medieval Latin referentia, nominative neuter plural of referēns, present participle of referō (“return, reply”, literally “carry back”). Morphologically refer + -ence.

verb/ˈɹɛf.(ə.)ɹəns/Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation[ˈɹɛf.ɹn̩s]Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈɹɛf.ə.ɹɛns/obsolete/ˈɹef.(ə.)ɹəns/Australia, New-Zealand

  1. To provide a list of references for (a text).

    You must thoroughly reference your paper before submitting it.

  2. To cite, to use as a reference.

    Reference the dictionary for word meanings.

  3. To mention, to refer to.

    proscribed · sometimes
    In his speech, the candidate obliquely referenced the past failures of his opponent.

  4. To contain the value that is a memory address of some value stored in memory.

    The given pointer will reference the actual generated data.
Where this word comes from

From Middle French référence, from Medieval Latin referentia, nominative neuter plural of referēns, present participle of referō (“return, reply”, literally “carry back”). Morphologically refer + -ence.

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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.