Word.ws English Dictionary

onomastics

UK/ˌɒ.nəʊˈmæs.tɪks//ˌɑː.noʊˈmæs.tɪks/

onomastics noun: the branch of lexicology devoted to the study of names and naming, especially the origins of names.

Noun

onomastics pl (plural only)

  1. (plural, plural-only) The branch of lexicology devoted to the study of names and naming, especially the origins of names.
    • Her father had long been a student of onomastics, and loved to unpack the names of people they encountered as children.2024, Susie Dent, Guilty By Definition, Zaffre, page 65
    • From the point of view of onomastics, proper names fulfill many functions (individualizing, localizing, differentiating etc.).(Can we date this quote?), David Vaculík, “Parts of the city of Ostrava – The past and current state of urbanonymy”, in Masaryk University Brno, page 405
    Synonyms:
    onomatology

onomastics meaning in Malay and Thai

onomastics in Malay

branch of lexicology devoted to the study of names
onomastik

onomastics in Thai

branch of lexicology devoted to the study of names
นามศาสตร์

Synonyms of onomastics

Origin of onomastics

First attested in 1936, from the adjective onomastic (“of or belonging to naming”) (1716) with a suffix -s, from French onomastique, from Ancient Greek ὀνομαστικός (onomastikós), from ὀνομαστός (onomastós, “named”), form of ὀνομάζω (onomázō, “I name”), from ὄνομα (ónoma, “name”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁nómn̥ (“name”) (whence English name).

Words formed from onomastics

Questions about onomastics

What does onomastics mean?
Onomastics means the branch of lexicology devoted to the study of names and naming, especially the origins of names.
What is onomastics in Malay?
Onomastics in Malay is onomastik. See Onomastics meaning in Malay.
What part of speech is onomastics?
Onomastics is a noun.
How do you pronounce onomastics?
Onomastics is pronounced /ˌɒ.nəʊˈmæs.tɪks/ (UK).

Words near onomastics in the dictionary

  1. onomasticians
  2. onomasticide
  3. onomasticides
  4. onomasticon
  5. onomasticons
  6. onomastics
  7. onomasts
  8. onomatapoeia
  9. onomatechny
  10. onomato-
  11. onomatoclast

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: onomastics (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-onomastics.ogg.

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