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nominal

adjective · noun

Simple meaning

Of, resembling, about, or made up of a name or names.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

nahmuhnuhl

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IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈnɑmənəl

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adjective

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

  2. Relating to or constituting or bearing or giving a name

  3. Assigned to or bearing a person's name.

  4. Of or relating to the presumed or approximate value, rather than the actual value.

  5. Existing in name only.

  6. Insignificantly small.

noun

  1. A number (usually natural) used like a name; a numeric code or identifier.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B2 · Upper Intermediate
Frequency
Moderately Common
Typical Use
Neutral / general English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

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

Used this way, nominal is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
No strong connotation
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Resembling / relating

nominal valuenominal damagesnominal interestnominal ratenominal amount

Pertaining

nominal exchange

Other combinations

merely nominalnominal wage

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • nominationnounDerived noun

    The act of officially naming a candidate.

  • nominallyadverbDerived adverb

    In name only.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • nominal damagesnounCompound term

    A trivial sum (usually $1.00) awarded as recognition that a legal injury was sustained (as for technical violations of a contract).

  • nominal headnounCompound term

    A person used as a cover for some questionable activity.

  • nominal aphasianounCompound term

    Inability to name objects or to recognize written or spoken names of objects.

  • nominal phrasenounCompound term

    A phrase that can function as the subject or object of a verb.

  • nominal valuenounCompound term

    The value of a security that is set by the company issuing it.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: of or resembling or relating to

nominative

Antonyms

Sense: number (usually natural) used like a name

realTechnical

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.