Word.ws English Dictionary

non-referring

non-referring adjective: describing an inflection that conveys the lack of referentiality, turning the referential noun non-referring.

Adjective

non-referring (not comparable)

  1. (Blackfoot language) Describing an inflection that conveys the lack of referentiality, turning the referential noun non-referring.
    • For example, you might send a son or daughter to a story with the following insteuctions: "Get a loaf of bread, some milk and a dozen apples". You don't have any particular loaf of bread, carton(s) of milk or dozen apples in mind, so the nouns "bread", "milk" and "apples" do not refer to any...1989, Donald G Frantz, Blackfoot Grammar

Synonyms of non-referring

Origin of non-referring

From non- + refering, coined by American linguist Donald G Frantz.

Questions about non-referring

What does non-referring mean?
Non-referring means describing an inflection that conveys the lack of referentiality, turning the referential noun non-referring.
What part of speech is non-referring?
Non-referring is an adjective.

Words near non-referring in the dictionary

  1. non-redundancy
  2. non-redundant
  3. non-referential
  4. non-referential perception
  5. non-referential perceptions
  6. non-referring
  7. non-reflecting
  8. non-reflexive
  9. non-refoulement
  10. non-refoulment
  11. non-refundable

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: non-referring (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: “non-referring.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/non-referring. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.