Examples of referent in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
There’s a sense of theater which the public lives off and needs to a certain extent, to have referents.
—
Pablo Sandoval, Variety, 13 Dec. 2023
The question involves determining the referent of the pronoun or possessive adjective.
—IEEE Spectrum, 19 Jan. 2015
In a pronoun resolution problem, the examples are ones that involve common sense in order to disambiguate the referent of the pronoun.
—IEEE Spectrum, 28 July 2016
Just to use a word is to acknowledge the absence of its referent, as though language itself makes loss our theme and medium.
—Matthew Gavin Frank, Harper's Magazine, 21 June 2023
Its originators wanted to escape their subservience to real-world referents and let shape and color act as a language all their own, like musical notes.
—Sebastian Smee, Washington Post, 5 May 2023
Academics and conceptual artists quivered with excitement after the news broke—referent, context, appropriation, etc.
—Hernan Diaz, Harper’s Magazine , 10 Feb. 2023
Like most graphical widgets, tabs are metaphors whose referent has been largely forgotten.
—Meghan O'Gieblyn, WIRED, 28 Mar. 2023
To sum it up in one sentence: the original writing systems began with mostly pictorial characters that resembled their referent, and over time became more efficient and abstract, including a greater number of signs that represented sounds and semantic information.
—Bridget Alex, Discover Magazine, 2 Jan. 2019
Pablo Sandoval, Variety, 13 Dec. 2023
The question involves determining the referent of the pronoun or possessive adjective.
—IEEE Spectrum, 19 Jan. 2015
In a pronoun resolution problem, the examples are ones that involve common sense in order to disambiguate the referent of the pronoun.
—IEEE Spectrum, 28 July 2016
Just to use a word is to acknowledge the absence of its referent, as though language itself makes loss our theme and medium.
—Matthew Gavin Frank, Harper's Magazine, 21 June 2023
Its originators wanted to escape their subservience to real-world referents and let shape and color act as a language all their own, like musical notes.
—Sebastian Smee, Washington Post, 5 May 2023
Academics and conceptual artists quivered with excitement after the news broke—referent, context, appropriation, etc.
—Hernan Diaz, Harper’s Magazine , 10 Feb. 2023
Like most graphical widgets, tabs are metaphors whose referent has been largely forgotten.
—Meghan O'Gieblyn, WIRED, 28 Mar. 2023
To sum it up in one sentence: the original writing systems began with mostly pictorial characters that resembled their referent, and over time became more efficient and abstract, including a greater number of signs that represented sounds and semantic information.
—Bridget Alex, Discover Magazine, 2 Jan. 2019
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'referent.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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Cite this Entry
“Referent.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/referent. Accessed 24 Apr. 2024.
Copy CitationKids Definition
referent
noun
ref·er·ent
ˈref-(ə-)rənt 
: something that refers or is referred to
especially
: the thing a word represents
referent
adjective
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