Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use nominal in a sentence

40 example sentences · adjective, noun

Nominal means of, resembling, relating to, or consisting of a name or names. Example: “He gave me only a nominal sum for my services.”

Examples of nominal by meaning

adjectiveExisting in name only.

  • a nominal difference

adjectiveInsignificantly small.

  • He gave me only a nominal sum for my services.

adjectiveOf 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

adjectiveOf or relating to a noun or word group that functions as a noun.

  • This sentence contains a nominal phrase.

adjectiveAccording 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.
  • This is not a nominal outcome.1992, Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash, New York: Bantam Books, →ISBN, page 9

adjectiveWithout 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.
  • Comparisons of the costs of the Diablo Canyon plant with other nuclear power plants can be misleading because the available cost data are in nominal dollars and therefore include the toll of inflation over the construction periods.1991, Richard J. Gilbert, Regulatory Choices: A Perspective on Developments in Energy Policy, page 267

adjectiveOf a species, the species name without consideration of whether it is a junior synonym or in reality consists of more...

  • 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...

nounA noun or word group that functions as part of a noun phrase.

  • This sentence contains two nominals.

More sentences with nominal

  • He paid her the nominal fee of two corns of barley.From the entry corn
  • Nominal plurality in Basque is originally exclusively marked on definite determiners and not on nouns.2025, Cid Swanenvleugel, The Pre-Roman Elements of the Sardinian Lexicon, page 333. From the entry plurality
  • That is the biggest nominal amount in modern history, and extraordinary any way you slice it.2018 August 1, Annie Lowrey, “Jeff Bezos’s $150 Billion Fortune Is a Policy Failure”, in The Atlantic, →ISSN, archived from the original…. From the entry hectobillionaire
  • Since the earliest days of Türkmenistan’s independence, the Centre has offered English-language classes for a nominal fee.2013, Victoria Clement, “Central Asia’s Hizmet Schools”, in Greg Barton, Paul Weller, Ihsan Yilmaz, editors, The Muslim World and Politics…. From the entry Türkmenistan
  • The Exploration Cooling Garment shall allow a crewmember to maintain their nominal shirt-sleeve range of motion.2008, Janet Ferl, Linda Hewes, Lindsay Aitchinson, Victor Koscheyev, Gloria Leon, Ed Hodgson, Frank Sneeringer, “Trade Study of an…. From the entry shirt-sleeve
  • 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…. From the entry root
  • Again there are two acceptable ways of locativizing a class 5 nominal.1997, Studies in African Linguistics, page 186. From the entry locativize
  • The Houstonian Hotel, President Bush's nominal Texas residence, is in bankruptcy.1992 August 13, Roberto Suro, “THE 1992 CAMPAIGN: Convention City; In No Mood to Party, Houston Awaits the G.O.P.”, in The New York Times…. From the entry Houstonian
  • This root must once have ablauted, given the associated nominal derivatives prthii- 'broad', prthivl- 'earth'.1983, Stephanie W. Jamison, Function and Form in the -áya-formations of the Rig Veda and ..., page 209. From the entry ablaut
  • Is an ascendee a nominal which ascends (e.g. by Raising), or--unlikelily--one which is ascended?1980, Papers from the Regional Meeting, Chicago Linguistic Society, page 142. From the entry unlikelily
  • Department stores are offering to Rhodanize the family silver for a nominal fee.1935 February 9, “New products”, in Business Week, number 284, New York: McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, page 29. From the entry rhodanize
  • A formal feature indicating a pre-Roman origin is word-final i, which is rare in the inherited nominal and adjectival lexicon.2025, Cid Swanenvleugel, The Pre-Roman Elements of the Sardinian Lexicon, page 356. From the entry shape
  • The coins were minted in nominal values of 1- and 2-spesmilo (i.e. one thousand and two thousand spesoj).2024 March, Roberto Menchaca, “Esperanto in Numismatics”, in Usona Esperantisto [American Esperantist], number 2024:1, El Cerrito, Calif.…. From the entry speso
  • In (3) examples are provided of Polish compounds proper which consist of two nominal stems linked by the intermorph -o-.2017 January 6, Pavol Štekauer, Salvador Valera, Lívia Körtvélyessy, Word-Formation across Languages, Cambridge Scholars Publishing…. From the entry intermorph
  • Unstrandable function words include the determiners and quantifiers that introduce nominal constituents, and the complementisers that introduce clauses.2016, Andrew Radford, Analysing English Sentences, second edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 143. From the entry unstrandable
  • Florida being Florida, all that energetic for-profit concerns had to do was set up non-profit shell companies as nominal administrators.2015, Chris Lehmann, ‘The Candidates’, London Review of Books, volume 37, number 12. From the entry for-profit
  • The quarrel stemmed from the question of whether the existence of these transcendentals was real or intellectual (also called nominal).2012, Jean Grondin, “Metaphysics and Theology in the Middle Ages”, in Lukas Soderstrom, transl., Introduction to Metaphysics: From…. From the entry transcendental
  • The nominal admission price includes one free ride on an antique carousel for children 2 years of age and older.2012, Phyllis Thomas, Indiana Off the Beaten Path: A Guide to Unique Places, page 3. From the entry ride-on
  • Since nominal tonology is usually more transparent, it can be used as a guide to unravel the tonology of verbs.2004, Larry M. Hyman, Knut J. Olawsky, “Dagbani Verb Tonology”, in Chege Githiora, Heather Littlefield, Victor Manfredi, editors, Kinyĩra…. From the entry tonology
  • Availability of credit boosts nominal aggregate demand by changing volume of liquidity available to banks, which the latter then onlend.2004, Armine Khachatryan, Mr. David A. Grigorian, Grigor Sargsyan, Exchange Rate, Money, and Wages: What is Driving Prices in Armenia?…. From the entry onlend
  • Each of these co-meronymous nominals is devoid of human agency.2000 July, Bernard J. McKenna, Philip Graham, “Technocratic Discourse: A Primer”, in Journal of Technical Writing and Communication…. From the entry comeronymous
  • Two signals having different nominal signaling rates, and not stemming from the same clock or from homochronous clocks are usually heterochronous.1980, Glossary of telecommunication terms, United States Federal Supply Service, page 55. From the entry homochronous
  • China’s suzerainty over Outer Tibet was only nominal.1960, Girilal Jain, “India's Failure in Tibet”, in Panchsheela and After: A Re-appraisal of Sino-Indian Relations in the Context of the…. From the entry Outer Tibet
  • The government at Taiyuan owed nominal allegiance to the Nationalists.1957, Alan Burgess, chapter 6, in 小婦人 [The Small Woman], New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., →OCLC, page 76. From the entry Yangcheng
  • In return, the tenant pays a nominal monthly rent and stays on the premises for years on end without any fear of eviction.2012 January 7, Kazim Alam, “Paperless pagri system still exists in old city areas”, in The Express Tribune. From the entry pagri
  • The tantalizing disjuncture between the wealth of the church and the studied wealthlessness of its nominal owner, the bishop, was central to Pomerius's argument.2012, Peter Brown, Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD. From the entry wealthlessness
  • With regard to ppl roots, Arabic has the noun dadan ‘toy’, probably a child’s term, but this is only a nominal root.2011 March 1, Eulàlia Vernet i Pons, “Semitic Root Incompatibilities and Historical Linguistics”, in Journal of Semitic Studies, volume…. From the entry tetraradical

Meaning of nominal

  1. adjective Of, resembling, relating to, or consisting of a name or names.
  2. adjective Assigned to or bearing a person's name.
  3. adjective Existing in name only.

Full definition of nominal

Questions about nominal in a sentence

How do you use nominal in a sentence?
Nominal is used as an adjective and noun. For example: “He gave me only a nominal sum for my services.”
What is a short sentence with nominal?
“a nominal difference”
What does nominal mean?
Nominal means of, resembling, relating to, or consisting of a name or names.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nominal (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use nominal in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/nominal. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.