namesake
/ˈneɪmseɪk/
namesake noun: an entity that lends its name to another entity.
Noun
namesake (plural namesakes)
- An entity that lends its name to another entity.
- Synonyms:
- eponym
- A person with the same name as another.
- The statesman Winston Churchill has a namesake, the American novelist Winston Churchill.
- Chris Evans, British DJ and media manipulator extraordinaire, is not to be confused with Chris Evans, Australia's shadow minister for family services, nor with Chris Evans, the late train robber of the wilds of west California, or indeed potentially hundreds of other namesakes. One unquestionable...2001 June 29, Deborah Schofield, “Chris Evans”, in The Guardian
- One who is named after another, often a child named after the parent or an ancestor.
- Bill Sr's namesake, Bill Jr, is 30 years younger.
- One for whom another is named, often the parent or ancestor who gave the name to a child.
- Bill Jr's namesake, Bill Sr, is 30 years older.
- It is the only citation from 1902, and was clearly added to the manuscript at a late stage, being only one of two examples of the dictionary’s namesake actually discovered by Crooke.2018, James Lambert, “Setting the Record Straight: An In-depth Examination of Hobson-Jobson”, in International Journal of Lexicography, volume 31, number 4, →DOI, page 493
- Something (especially a ship, a building, or a medical condition, symptom, or sign) that is named after someone or something.
- Synonyms:
- eponym
Verb
namesake (third-person singular simple present namesakes, present participle namesaking, simple past and past participle namesaked)
- To name (somebody) after somebody else.
namesake meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
namesake in Hindi
- person with the same name as another
- हमनाम hamnām
namesake in Tamil
- ஒரே பெயருள்ள, பேராளி
namesake in Marathi
- नेमसेक
namesake in Urdu
- person with the same name as another
- ہمنام hamnām
More languagesFewer languages
- namesake in Bengali
- সমনামী ব্যক্তি
- namesake in Malayalam
- ഒരേ പേരുളളവൻ, ഏകനാമകൻ, ഏകനാമധാരി, അതേ പേരുകാരൻ
- namesake in Kannada
- ಸಮಾನ ನಾಮಧಾರಿ, ಅದೇ ಹೆಸರಿನವನು, ಸ್ವನಾಮಕ
- namesake in Nepali
- नेमसेक
- namesake in Arabic
- سَمِيّ samiyy, سَمِيَّة samiyya
- namesake in Persian
- همنام hamnâm
- namesake in Vietnamese
- người trùng tên
Examples of namesake in a sentence
- Cornish choughs, or “beckets”, as they are sometimes known, are seen on Thomas Wolsey’s coat of arms; they are a reference to his namesake, Thomas Becket.
- The company’s namesake, Condé Montrose Nast, was a Gilded Age striver from St.
- Claus, who explains to children that he is not the real Santa, just his namesake.
Synonyms of namesake
Forms of namesake
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | namesakes |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | namesakes |
| present participle | namesaking |
| past participle | namesaked |
| past | namesaked |
Origin of namesake
Mid-17th century. Equivalent to name + sake. From the phrase “for (one's) name's sake”, first found in Bible translations as a rendering of a Calque of Hebrew לְמַעַן שְׁמוֹ (l'má'an sh'mó) idiom meaning “to protect one's reputation” or possibly “vouched for by one's reputation”. A familiar example is in Psalm 23:3.
Questions about namesake
- What does namesake mean?
- Namesake means an entity that lends its name to another entity.
- What is namesake in Hindi?
- Namesake in Hindi is हमनाम (hamnām). See Namesake meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is namesake?
- Namesake can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce namesake?
- Namesake is pronounced /ˈneɪmseɪk/.
- What is the plural of namesake?
- The plural of namesake is namesakes.
Words near namesake in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: namesake (page history and authors); namesake (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); namesake (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); namesake (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); namesake (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); namesake (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); namesake (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-namesake.ogg, en-au-namesake.ogg.
Cite this entry: “namesake.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/namesake. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.