notional

English

Etymology

notion +‎ -al

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈnəʊʃənəl/
• Rhymes: -əʊʃənəl

Adjective

notional (comparative more notional, superlative most notional)

1. Of, containing, or being a notion; mental or imaginary.
2. Speculative, theoretical, not the result of research.

   This paper proposes a notional Federated Identity Management (FIM) architecture.

3. (linguistics) Having descriptive value as opposed to a syntactic category.
4. (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.

Derived terms

• notionality
• notionally

Translations

of, containing, or being a notion

• Catalan: nocional
• Finnish: kuvitteellinen (fi)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• French: notionnel (fr)
• Spanish: nocional

speculative, theoretical

• Catalan: nocional
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Finnish: kuvitteellinen (fi)

linguistics: having descriptive value

• Finnish: kuvaileva (fi)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• French: notionnel (fr)

finance: estimated or reference

• Finnish: viite- (fi)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• French: notionnel (fr)

Noun

notional (plural notionals)

1. 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.