Definition:
The direct or dictionary meaning of a word, in contrast to its figurative or associated meanings (connotation). See Choosing the Best Words: Denotations and Connotations.
Etymology:
From the Latin, "mark"Examples and Observations:
- "Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I wish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be permanent, like the things they denote."
(Samuel Johnson, Preface to Dictionary) - "The denotation of the word home is simply 'a place where one lives'; the connotation of home is far more complex. According to Oliver Wendell Holmes, 'Where we love is home, home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.'
- "The very word secrecy is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings."
(President John F. Kennedy) - Vizzini: He didn't fall? Inconceivable.
Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
(The Princess Bride, 1987) - Wolly: "I can't believe I fell for counterfeit Superbowl tickets. The guys will be crestfallen when they find out."
Homer: "Yes, if by 'crestfallen' you mean they're going to kill us."
("Sunday, Cruddy Sunday," The Simpsons) - "When you get just a complete sense of blackness or void ahead of you, that somehow the future looks an impossible place to be, and the direction you are going seems to have no purpose, there is this word despair which is a very awful thing to feel."
(Stephen Fry)
Pronunciation: DEE-no-TAY-shun
Also Known As: cognitive meaning
