APPELLATIVE • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Appellative

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noun

Appellative n.

A common name, in distinction from a proper name. A common name, or appellative, stands for a whole class, genus, or species of beings, or for universal ideas. Thus, tree is the name of all plants of a particular class; plant and vegetable are names of things that grow out of the earth. A proper name, on the other hand, stands for a single thing; as, Rome, Washington, Lake Erie.

An appellation or title; a descriptive name. "God chosen it for one of his appellatives to be the Defender of them."

adjective

Appellative adj.

Pertaining to a common name; serving as a distinctive denomination; denominative; naming.

(Gram.) Common, as opposed to proper; denominative of a class.

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Etymology of 'Appellative'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Appellative" Quotes from Famous Books

... well understood, that I begged the students who first gave me the endearing appellative 'mother' not to name me thus. But, without my consent, that word spread like wildfire. I still must think the name is not applicable to me. I stand in relation to this century as a Christian discoverer, founder, ...

— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... Troteomvs, Sca. Agnes, Scs. Bitvs, Scs. Apolinnaris, Scs. Hyppolitvs, Scs. Sabastianvs, Scs. Severvs." Dr. Kandler thought that it came from the church of S. Niceta in Aquileia, and was brought to the island with other treasures in 452, for safety, from Attila. De Rossi thought that the appellative "Domna" distinguishing the Virgin was an argument against such high antiquity; but in a later number of his "Bullettino" he described an inscription of about 457 at Loja, in Spain, in which the title ...

— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson

... told Abram the Hebrew, the Septuagint renders it the passenger, [GREEK]: but this is spoken only of Abram himself, who had then lately passed over Euphrates, and is another signification of the Hebrew word, taken as an appellative, and not as a ...

— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... editor remarks, that the name Manuja, Man-born, as the appellative of the human race, is derived from Manu, as likewise Manawas, masc. Man—Manawi, fem. Woman: from thence the Gothic Mann, which we have preserved. Manu is ...

— Nala and Damayanti and Other Poems • Henry Hart Milman

... she calls him, pappa! a more natural stile of address and more endearing. But ancient as this appellative is, it is also so familiar in modern use, that the Translator feared ...

— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer

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