notional

adjective no·tion·al \ ˈnō-shnəl , -shə-nᵊl \

|Updated on: 12 Jul 2018

Examples: notional in a Sentence

Definition of notional

1 : theoretical, speculative

2 : existing in the mind only : imaginary

3 : given to foolish or fanciful moods or ideas

4 a : of, relating to, or being a notion or idea : conceptual

b (1) : presenting an idea of a thing, action, or quality

has is notional in he has luck, relational in he has gone

(2) : of or representing what exists or occurs in the world of things as distinguished from syntactic categories

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notionality

play \ˌnō-shə-ˈna-lə-tē\ noun

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notionally

play \ˈnō-shnə-lē, -shə-nᵊl-ē\ adverb

See notional defined for English-language learners

Examples of notional in a Sentence

The notional earnings of the company were close to the actual ones.
she has a notional understanding of romantic love but no actual experience of being in love

Recent Examples of notional from the Web

Investors traded a record number of futures contracts tied to the dollar against the offshore yuan on Hong Kong’s exchange on Tuesday, representing a notional value of $2.2 billion, according to Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd.

— saumya vaishampayan, WSJ, "China’s Yuan Reverses Course, Rises Against Dollar," 4 July 2018
Altogether, the orders in question represented more than five billion shares with a notional value of more than $141 billion, according to the SEC.

— maria armental, WSJ, "Bank of America to Pay $42 Million to Settle SEC Electronic-Trading Charges," 19 June 2018
For example, 16% of its €42trn of notional derivatives have a maturity of over five years.

— The Economist, "Should one of the world’s largest banks be wound down?," 19 Apr. 2018
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission voted 2-1 for a proposal that would permanently set the threshold for swap-dealer registration at $8 billion in annual notional value.

— gabriel t. rubin, WSJ, "Regulators Back Threshold for Swap-Dealer Registration at $8 Billion," 4 June 2018
SpaceX has a notional goal of launching the first BFR to Mars in 2022.

— eric berger, Ars Technica, "Elon Musk shows off a new tooling for the BFR spaceship," 9 Apr. 2018
The derivatives, called credit-default swaps (CDSs), pay the difference between the notional value of a bond and the lowest price at which any of the company’s bonds is trading when the CDS is triggered.

— The Economist, "A bondholder finds a sneaky way to trigger insurance against default," 3 May 2018
The notional dollar value rose even faster -- at a rate of 200 percent -- to about $8.24 billion last year, the bank said.

— Bloomberg.com, "Powell: U.S. Federal Budget Is Not on a Sustainable Path," 6 Apr. 2018
The notional dollar value rose even faster -- at a rate of 200 percent -- to about $8.24 billion last year, the bank said.

— heesu lee and stephen stapczynski, Houston Chronicle, "If trade war escalates, will China target U.S. shale?," 6 Apr. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'notional.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.