nominal

/ˈnɑmənl/
/ˈnɒmɪnəl/
IPA guide

Other forms: nominals

Schools, libraries, and other organizations often ask you to make a nominal donation to their cause. While you want to support many causes, these nominal donations soon add up to a substantial portion of your budget!

Another meaning for the adjective nominal is "in name only" or only having a title. The CEO is the nominal head of the company, but you know his assistant is one who is really in charge of the day-to-day business of the company. He is the go-to person for signing invoices, purchase orders, and resolving personnel issues.

Definitions of nominal
  1. adjective
    relating to or constituting or bearing or giving a name
    “the Russian system of nominal brevity”
    “a nominal lists of priests”
    “taxable males as revealed by the nominal rolls”
  2. adjective
    named; bearing the name of a specific person
    synonyms: nominative
    specified
    clearly and explicitly stated
  3. adjective
    existing in name only
    “the nominal (or titular) head of his party”
    synonyms: titular
    formal
    being in accord with established forms and conventions and requirements (as e.g. of formal dress)
  4. adjective
    pertaining to a noun or to a word group that functions as a noun
    “nominal phrase”
  5. noun
    a phrase that can function as the subject or object of a verb
    synonyms: nominal phrase, noun phrase
    see moresee less
    type of:
    phrase
    an expression consisting of one or more words forming a grammatical constituent of a sentence
  6. adjective
    insignificantly small; a matter of form only (`tokenish' is informal)
    “the fee was nominal”
    synonyms: token, tokenish
    minimal, minimum
    the least possible
  7. adjective
    of, relating to, or characteristic of an amount that is not adjusted for inflation
    “the nominal GDP”
    “nominal interest rates”
    see moresee less
    antonyms:
    real
    of, relating to, or representing an amount that is corrected for inflation
Pronunciation
US
/ˈnɑmənl/
UK
/ˈnɒmɪnəl/
Cite this entry
Style:
MLA
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago

Copy citation
DISCLAIMER: These example sentences appear in various news sources and books to reflect the usage of the word ‘nominal'. Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Vocabulary.com or its editors. Send us feedback
Word Family

Vocabulary lists containing nominal

The Vocabulary.com Top 1000

The top 1,000 vocabulary words have been carefully chosen to represent difficult but common words that appear in everyday academic and business writing. These words are also the most likely to appear on the SAT, ACT, GRE, and ToEFL. To create this list, we started with the words that give our users the most trouble and then ranked them by how frequently they appear in our corpus of billions of words from edited sources. If you only have time to study one list of words, this is the list.

"The Latehomecomer," Vocabulary from the memoir excerpt

As you read Kao Kalia Yang's "The Latehomecomer," learn this word list. Here are links to lists for texts in Grade 8's Collection 1: My Favorite Chaperone, Bonne Annee, A Place to Call Home, The Latehomecomer

100 SAT Words Beginning with "N"

Find lists of SAT words organized by every letter of the alphabet here: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K & L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, and W, X, Y & Z.

MORE VOCABULARY LISTS