Word.ws English Dictionary

nominative determinism

nominative determinism noun: a supposed tendency for people to become active in subjects that relate or correspond to their names.

Noun

nominative determinism (uncountable)

  1. A supposed tendency for people to become active in subjects that relate or correspond to their names.
    • A little-known aspect of pop sociology called nominative determinism intrigued Rory Honeyman for a very good reason. Except for a concatenation of historical accidents, he would have fallen under its purview himself.2003, Paul Di Filippo, chapter 2, in Spondulix: A Romance of Hoboken, Open Road Integrated Media
    • I need hardly add that he is a prime example of that scientific principle known as nominative determinism — being a man who uses telescopes, called I. Glass!2010, Steve Ringwood, Astronomers Anonymous: Getting Help with the Puzzles and Pitfalls of Practical Astronomy, Springer, page ix

Questions about nominative determinism

What does nominative determinism mean?
Nominative determinism means a supposed tendency for people to become active in subjects that relate or correspond to their names.
What part of speech is nominative determinism?
Nominative determinism is a noun.

Words near nominative determinism in the dictionary

  1. nominative
  2. nominative absolute
  3. nominative absolutes
  4. nominative case
  5. nominative cases
  6. nominative determinism
  7. nominative type system
  8. nominative type systems
  9. nominatively
  10. nominatives
  11. nominativus pendens

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nominative determinism (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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