APPELLATIVE • E-FREE TRANSLATION.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

... polytheism has arisen. Perhaps, however, we should rather use the word 'polydaemonism' than 'polytheism.' By a god is usually meant a being who has come to possess a proper name; and, probably, a spirit is worshipped for some considerable time, before the appellative, by which he is addressed, loses its original meaning, and comes to be the proper name by which he, and he alone, is addressed. Certainly, the stage in which spirits without proper names are worshipped ...

— The Idea of God in Early Religions • F. B. Jevons

... dictionary, common or appellative, I have omitted all words which have relation to proper names, such as Arian, Socinian, Calvinist, Benedictine, Mahometan, but have retained those of a more general nature, as ...

— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... which he uttered a response which was in fact the signal for bloodshed, not less than the savage ferocity of his preparations generally, amply sustained his pretension to this appellative. Munro knew his man too well not to perceive that to this "fashion must they come at last;" and simply assuring Dexter that he would submit his decision to his followers, he retired back upon the anxious and indignant party, who had ...

— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... guess to whom, among this jolly company, the Poet addresses himself: for immediately after the Plural appellative you, ...

— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe

... had not been one of cyclopean clumsiness and weight, he would have borne it to the floor. A leaden tint was darkening the pallor of his face. They were becoming alarmed, and finally braving everything his wife timidly said, "Tom!" and then more sharply repeated it, and finally cried the appellative loudly, and again and again, with the terrified accompaniment, "He's dying—he's dying!" her voice rising to a scream, as she found that neither it nor her plucks and shakings of him by the shoulder had the slightest effect in ...

— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu

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