Word.ws English Dictionary

nominal

/ˈnɒm.ɪ.nl̩/US/ˈnɑ.mɪ.nl̩/

nominal adjective: of, resembling, relating to, or consisting of a name or names.

Adjective

nominal (not comparable)

  1. Of, resembling, relating to, or consisting of a name or names.
  2. Assigned to or bearing a person's name.
  3. Existing in name only.
    • a nominal difference
    • At Edinburgh he passed eighteen months in nominal attendance on lectures, and picked up some superficial information about chemistry and natural history.1856 February, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Oliver Goldsmith, republished in 1865, The Miscellaneous Writings of Lord Macaulay, Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts and Green, page 300
    Synonyms:
    ceremonial
  4. Of or relating to nominalism.
  5. Insignificantly small.
    • He gave me only a nominal sum for my services.
    • In the summer, DCC [Devon County Council] transferred ownership of the northern part of the station to NR for a nominal £1, enabling it (and the platform) to become part of the rail network.2021 November 17, Andrew Mourant, “Okehampton: a new dawn for Dartmoor”, in RAIL, number 944, page 43
    Synonyms:
    trifling
  6. Of or relating to the presumed or approximate value, rather than the actual value.
    • The nominal voltage is 1.5 V, but the actual figure is usually higher.
    • the nominal yield of a nuclear weapon
    Antonyms:
    effective
  7. Of, relating to, or being the amount or face value of a sum of money or a stock certificate, for example, and not the purchasing power or market value.
  8. Of, relating to, or being the rate of interest or return without adjustment for compounding or inflation.
  9. Of or relating to a noun or word group that functions as a noun.
    • This sentence contains a nominal phrase.
  10. According to plan or design.
    • We'll just do a nominal flight check.
    • Apart from the slightly high temperature, all the readings from the spacecraft are nominal.
    Synonyms:
    normal
  11. Without adjustment to remove the effects of inflation.
    • My employer does not understand how low my nominal wage is.
    • The nominal GNP of this country is pretty low.
    Antonyms:
    real
  12. Having values whose order is insignificant.
  13. Of a species, the species name without consideration of whether it is a junior synonym or in reality consists of more than one biological species.
    • Since then, a good deal of research has documented and concluded that the nominal species A. fraterculus actually comprises an unresolved complex of cryptic species.2015 November 26, Mosè Manni et al., “Relevant genetic differentiation among Brazilian populations of Anastrepha fraterculus (Diptera, Tephritidae)”, in ZooKeys, volume 540, →DOI

Noun

nominal (plural nominals)

  1. A noun or word group that functions as part of a noun phrase.
    • This sentence contains two nominals.
  2. A part of speech that shares features with nouns and adjectives. (Depending on the language, it may comprise nouns, adjectives, possibly numerals, pronouns, and participles.)
    • A considerable number of derived nominals, especially thematic nouns, also exhibited o-grade roots.2006, Donald Ringe, From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic (A Linguistic History of English; 1), Oxford: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 12
  3. A number (usually natural) used like a name; a numeric code or identifier. (See nominal number on Wikipedia.)
    • Numeric codes of characters used in programming are nominals.
  4. (UK, jargon) A person listed in the Police National Computer database as having been convicted, cautioned or recently arrested.

nominal meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

nominal in Hindi

of or relating to a name or names
नाममात्र nāmmātr

nominal in Tamil

பெயரளவில், மெய்ப் பண்பற்ற, பெயரளவு

nominal in Urdu

آٹے میں نمک, برائے نام, فرضی, صرف نام کو

nominal in Bengali

নামমাত্র, তুচ্ছ, বিশেষ্য সম্বন্ধীয়, নামসংক্রান্ত
More languagesFewer languages
nominal in Malayalam
നാമമാത്രമായ
nominal in Kannada
ಹೆಸರಿಗೆ ಮಾತ್ರವಿರುವ, ನಾಮಮಾತ್ರದ, ವಾಸ್ತವವಲ್ಲದ, ನಾಮ್ಕೆವಾಸ್ತೆ
nominal in Odia
ଖାଲି khāli, ସ୍ପର୍ଶ sparśa
nominal in Sanskrit
शाब्द śābdá
nominal in Tagalog
pasapyaw, makangalan

Examples of nominal in a sentence

  • He paid her the nominal fee of two corns of barley.
  • Nominal plurality in Basque is originally exclusively marked on definite determiners and not on nouns.
  • That is the biggest nominal amount in modern history, and extraordinary any way you slice it.

All 40 example sentences with nominal

Synonyms of nominal

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of nominal

Forms of nominal

pluralnominals

Origin of nominal

PIE word *h₁nómn̥ Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₁nómn̥ Proto-Italic *nōmn̥ Latin nōmen Proto-Indo-European *h₂el- Proto-Indo-European *-is Proto-Indo-European *h₂élisder.? Proto-Italic *-ālis Latin -ālis Latin nōminālisder. Middle English nominalle English nominal From the Middle English nominalle (“of nouns”), borrowed from Latin nōminālis (“of names”), ultimately from oblique stem of Latin nōmen, nōminis (“name”) + -al.

Words formed from nominal

Phrases with nominal

Questions about nominal

What does nominal mean?
Nominal means of, resembling, relating to, or consisting of a name or names.
What is nominal in Hindi?
Nominal in Hindi is नाममात्र (nāmmātr). See Nominal meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is nominal?
Nominal can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce nominal?
Nominal is pronounced /ˈnɒm.ɪ.nl̩/ (UK).

Words near nominal in the dictionary

  1. nomina translata
  2. nomina unitatis
  3. nomina vasis
  4. nomina verbi
  5. nominable
  6. nominal
  7. nominal aphasia
  8. nominal clause
  9. nominal clauses
  10. nominal ledger
  11. nominal ledgers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nominal (page history and authors); nominal (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); nominal (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); nominal (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); nominal (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); nominal (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ଖାଲି (Odia) (page history and authors); शाब्द (Sanskrit) (page history and authors). 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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Cite this entry: “nominal.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/nominal. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.