notional

English edit

notion +‎ -al

notional (comparative more notional, superlative most notional)

Of, containing, or being a notion; mental or imaginary.
Near-synonyms: conceptual, fancied, fanciful, ideal

The idea that a rooster says cock-a-doodle-doo rather than ooh ooh-ooh ooh-ooh is socially conventional even though its sound correspondence is at heart notional.
Speculative, theoretical, not the result of research.
This paper proposes a notional Federated Identity Management (FIM) architecture.
(Maine) Stubborn.
(linguistics) Having descriptive value as opposed to a syntactic category.
(finance) Used to indicate an estimate or a reference amount
- 2009 March 11, “Gold inches up on bargain hunt, ETF hits record”, in Ninemsn:
  Gold traded at $909.00 an ounce, up 0.2 percent from New York's notional close of $906.65 on Wednesday.
- 2009 March 3, “Harvard Accepts Higher Debt Costs as Bankers Profit”, in Bloomberg:
  Under the agreements, Harvard paid the banks fixed interest rates on a total notional amount of $3.52 billion in exchange for floating-rate payments from them.
(informal) Full of ideas or imaginings.
- 1995, Walter D. Edmonds, In the Hands of the Senecas, page 137:
  She knew what Pete would say if she told him about it — he would say she was getting notional; and she did not want Pete to think of her as a notional woman. Notional women sometimes had a hard time marrying unless they had money.

of, containing, or being a notion

speculative, theoretical

linguistics: having descriptive value

finance: estimated or reference

notional (plural notionals)

A fake company used as a front in espionage.
- 2012, Joseph C. Goulden, Peter Earnest, The Dictionary of Espionage: Spyspeak Into English, page 157:
  Numerous CIA notionals, created to counter Communist organizations in Western Europe during the Cold War years, remain active and unrevealed.