WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2026
no•tion•al
(nō′shə nl),USA pronunciation adj.
no′tion•al′i•ty, n.
no′tion•al•ly, adv.
- pertaining to or expressing a notion or idea.
- of the nature of a notion or idea:a notional response to the question.
- abstract, theoretical, or speculative, as reflective thought.
- not real or actual;
ideal or imaginary:to create a notional world for oneself. - given to or full of foolish or fanciful ideas or moods.
- Linguistics[Gram.]
- relating to the meaning expressed by a linguistic form.
- having full lexical meaning, in contrast to relational.
- Linguistics, Philosophy[Semantics.]belonging to a class of words that express clear concepts rather than relations between concepts;
presentive. Cf. relational (def. 3), symbolic (def. 4).
- notion + -al1 1590–1600
no′tion•al•ly, adv.
'notionally' also found in these entries (note: many are not synonyms or translations):