referent

B2 Topic:Communication
US /ˈɹɛf(ə)ɹənt/ UK /ˈɹɛf(ə)ɹənt/
adj noun Freq #131115

Meanings

  1. 1
    noun

    The thing in the world that a word or phrase refers to.

    In the sentence "the dog barked," the referent is the actual dog.

Thesaurus

Word family
Forms referents
Derived forms nonreferentreferentless

Etymology

From refer + -ent.

View etymology graph ->

Topics

markdown

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