denotation

  1. Noun.  The act of denoting, or something (such as a symbol) that denotes.
  2. Noun.  (logic, linguistics) The primary, literal, or explicit meaning of a word, phrase, or symbol; that which a word denotes, as contrasted with its connotation; the aggregate or set of objects of which a word may be predicated.
  3. Noun.  (philosophy, logic) The intension and extension of a word.
  4. Noun.  (semantics) Something signified or referred to; a particular meaning of a symbol.
  5. Noun.  (semiotics) The surface or literal meaning encoded to a signifier, and the definition most likely to appear in a dictionary.
  6. Noun.  (computer science) Any mathematical object which describes the meanings of expressions from the languages, formalized in the theory of denotational semantics.
  7. Noun.  (context, media-studies) A first level of analysis: what the audience can visually see on a page. Denotation often refers to something literal, and avoids being a metaphor.

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This entry was last updated on RefTopia from its source on 3/20/2012.