How to use referential in a sentence

11 example sentences · adjective

Referential means of a word or phrase applied to a particular person, place, or thing and not to any other. Example: “Thus, the referential location of “town” in an utterance “Went to town”, is simply to be conceived as that location which might also be referred to by “there”, “the place we visited last Thursday”, “your birthplace”, etc.”

Examples of referential by meaning

adjectiveOf or relating to a referent.

Thus, the referential location of “town” in an utterance “Went to town”, is simply to be conceived as that location which might also be referred to by “there”, “the place we visited last Thursday”, “your birthplace”, etc.2011, James Dickins, Extended Axiomatic Linguistics, Walter de Gruyter, page 108

adjectiveOf or relating to reference or allusion.

Above all, the referential approach has proved durable and especially flexible.1990, Gerald Mead, “The Representation of Fictional Character”, in Style, volume 24, number 3, Penn State UP, →JSTOR, page 441
In the first place, it must be pointed out that the bond with the past is inferential rather than referential.1991, David Herzberger, “Social Realism and the Contingencies of History in the Contemporary Spanish Novel”, in Hispanic Review, volume 59...

More sentences with referential

Many Native American songs employ vocables, syllables that do not have referential meaning.a. 2010, Victoria Lindsay Levine, Native American Music, Encyclopaedia Britannica. From the entry vocable
It just lacks certain conditions that a place should have, such as a name and a referential reality.2012, Kai-cheung Dung, Atlas: The Archaeology of an Imaginary City, Columbia University Press, →ISBN. From the entry nonplace
If there is no DP in the 'strict' sense, the question arises as how Chinese encodes argumenthood and referential properties.2006, Joanna Ut-seong Sio, Modification and reference in the Chinese nominal, page 10. From the entry argumenthood
Gretta's story, by contrast, has all the force of an authentic performance, a spontaneous speech-act that recreates its own referential validity.2004, Gerald Doherty, Dubliners' Dozen, page 132. From the entry hypodiegetic
The possession of sortal concepts is a prerequisite for philosophers like Wiggins or Lowe in determining the nature and extent of our referential capacities.2008 January 8, John E. Sarnecki, “Sortals for Dummies”, in Erkenntnis, volume 69, number 2, →DOI. From the entry sortal
Penrod is so referential as to be almost a work of postmodernism—assuming Tarkington could have imagined such a thing with modernism itself just beginning to steamroll over him.2004 May, Thomas Mallon, “Hoosiers”, in The Atlantic. From the entry modernism
From this perspective, thematic or referential similarities count less than a sensually alert feel of the text: sounds, sights, echoes and colours as carried by the 'speakingness' of living language.2014, Claire Davison, Translation as Collaboration, page 52. From the entry speakingness
Commonsense tells us that to have a name but no referential reality, or to have referential reality but no name, does not count as a “place” in the strict sense.2012, Kai-cheung Dung, Atlas: The Archaeology of an Imaginary City, Columbia University Press, →ISBN. From the entry nonplace

Meaning of referential

adjective Of a word or phrase applied to a particular person, place, or thing and not to any other.
adjective Of or relating to a referent.
adjective Of or relating to reference or allusion.

Full definition of referential

Questions about referential in a sentence

How do you use referential in a sentence?: Referential is used as an adjective. For example: “Thus, the referential location of “town” in an utterance “Went to town”, is simply to be conceived as that location which might also be referred to by “there”, “the place we visited last Thursday”, “your birthplace”, etc.”
What is a short sentence with referential?: “Above all, the referential approach has proved durable and especially flexible.”
What does referential mean?: Referential means of a word or phrase applied to a particular person, place, or thing and not to any other.

Adapted from Wiktionary: referential (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: 2026-09-02

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