Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use referent in a sentence

10 example sentences · noun

Referent means the specific entity in the world that a word or phrase identifies or denotes: what it refers to. Example: “For quotations using this term, see Citations:referent.”

Examples of referent by meaning

nounThe specific entity in the world that a word or phrase identifies or denotes: what it refers to.

  • For quotations using this term, see Citations:referent.

More sentences with referent

  • For example, in They appear uneasy, the property of being uneasy is predicated of (the referent of) they, which is therefore the predicand.From the entry predicand
  • The orientative case indicates that an entity or event is oriented towards or around the referent.2011 July 15, Dibella Wdzenczny, “The case for fewer cases in pre-chukotko-kamchatkan: Grammaticalization and semantics in internal…. From the entry orientative
  • Pronouns, for instance, are structures that organise information about continuous referents.2006, Viktor Elšik, Yaron Matras, Markedness and Language Change: The Romani Sample, →ISBN, page 29. From the entry gender
  • It has a norm, a referent: the China girl.2013, Rachel Kushner, chapter 6, in Flamethrowers, page 86. From the entry China girl
  • In narratives, discontinuative predicate focus is used when there is a topic shift, or when two referents are contrasted.2010, Ines Fiedler, Anne Schwarz, The Expression of Information Structure. From the entry discontinuative
  • When a hiatus is referent what it hiates is referent, when a hiatus is relatum what it hiates is relatum.1932, John Wisdom, “Logical constructions (III.)”, in Mind, JSTOR. From the entry hiate
  • I define spatial computing as human interaction with a machine in which the machine retains and manipulates referents to real objects and spaces.2003 May 16, Simon Greenwold, Spatial Computing (thesis). From the entry spatial computing
  • Summing up the analysis, predications of identifiedness and unidentifiedness are analyzed as relations between a discourse referent and the output file introduced by the description of content.1997 August 6, Dorit Abusch, Mats Rooth, “Discourse Referent Predication”, in Epistemic NP Modifiers, →OCLC, page 9. From the entry identifiedness
  • Viewed syntagmatically, article-introduced nominal clusters have been judged either to refer to an already mentioned or to an already known referent or not so to refer.1968, Ruth Crymes, “Articles and Article-Introduced Nominal Clusters”, in Some Systems of Substitution Correlations in Modern American…. From the entry identifiedness

Meaning of referent

  1. noun The specific entity in the world that a word or phrase identifies or denotes: what it refers to.
  2. noun That which is referenced.

Full definition of referent

Questions about referent in a sentence

How do you use referent in a sentence?
Referent is used as a noun. For example: “For quotations using this term, see Citations:referent.”
What is a short sentence with referent?
“For quotations using this term, see Citations:referent.”
What does referent mean?
Referent means the specific entity in the world that a word or phrase identifies or denotes: what it refers to.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: referent (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.

Last updated:

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