what's in a name
what's in a name phrase: used to argue that something's name is arbitrary and does not give any information as to its qualities; the names of things do not affect what they really are.
Phrase
what's in a name?
- Used to argue that something's name is arbitrary and does not give any information as to its qualities; the names of things do not affect what they really are.
Origin of what's in a name
Coined by William Shakespeare in 1597 in "Romeo and Juliet," act 2, scene 2: : What's in a name? That which we call a rose, : By any other name would smell as sweet.
Questions about what's in a name
- What does what's in a name mean?
- What's in a name means used to argue that something's name is arbitrary and does not give any information as to its qualities; the names of things do not affect what they really are.
- What part of speech is what's in a name?
- What's in a name is a phrase.
Words near what's in a name in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: what's in a name (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: “what's in a name.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/what%27s_in_a_name. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.