notation
noun
Simple meaning
A technical system of symbols used to represent special things.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
nohtayshuhnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
noʊˈteɪʃən
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.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A technical system of symbols used to represent special things
uncountablecountable
A system of characters, symbols, or abbreviated expressions used in an art or science or in mathematics or logic to express technical facts or quantities.
The activity of representing something by a special system of marks or characters
uncountable
The act, process, method, or an instance of representing by a system or set of marks, signs, figures, or characters.
countable
A specific note or piece of information written in such a notation.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Varies by meaning
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A technical system of symbols used to represent special things
Used this way, notation is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in technical or specialist writing contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use notation
- “The scientist used a special notation to write down the complex formula.”
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Any notation that uses 12 different characters.
A radix numeration system in which the location of the decimal point is fixed by convention.
A radix numeration system in which the location of the decimal point is indicated by an exponent of the radix.
Any notation that uses 16 different characters.
A notation for forming mathematical expressions using parentheses and governed by rules of operator precedence.
A parenthesis-free notation for forming mathematical expressions in which each operator precedes its operands.
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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.