notional
UK /ˈnəʊʃənəl/ · US /ˈnoʊʃənəl/ adjective, noun
Forms notionals
- adjective Of, containing, or being a notion; mental or imaginary. “The idea that a rooster says cock-a-doodle-doo rather than ooh ooh-ooh ooh-ooh is socially conventional even though its sound correspondence is at heart notional.”
- adjective Speculative, theoretical, not the result of research. “This paper proposes a notional Federated Identity Management (FIM) architecture.”
- adjective (Maine) Stubborn.
- adjective (linguistics) Having descriptive value as opposed to a syntactic category.
- adjective (finance) Used to indicate an estimate or a reference amount
- adjective (informal) Full of ideas or imaginings.
- noun A fake company used as a front in espionage.
Synonyms
conceptual fancied fanciful ideal imaginary speculative conceptional ideational
Etymology
From notion + -al.
Webster’s 1913
- adjective Consisting of, or conveying, notions or ideas; expressing abstract conceptions.
- adjective Existing in idea only; visionary; whimsical.
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “notional”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details