Nominal

How to spell nominal

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce nominal

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does nominal mean?

1. adjectiveSo small as to be merely a token, far less than the real value or cost.
2. adjectiveExisting in name or on paper rather than in real fact or function.
3. adjectiveOperating within expected or planned limits; performing as designed.

Nominal in a sentence

• The museum charges only a nominal fee for entry.

• He remained the nominal head of the company while others ran it.

• Mission control confirmed that all systems were nominal during launch.

• She sold the old car to her brother for a nominal sum.

• The treaty gave the region nominal independence without real power.

• The engine readings stayed nominal throughout the test flight.

Where does nominal come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word descends from the Latin nominalis, meaning 'of or belonging to a name', which was built on nomen, the ordinary Latin word for 'name'. English took it up in the fifteenth century, at first in technical and grammatical senses to describe something existing as a name rather than in substance. From that idea of being a thing 'in name only' grew the familiar modern sense of an amount so small it is merely a token, as in a nominal fee. The same nomen root sits inside a whole family of English words, including 'noun', 'nominate', 'denomination', and 'nomenclature', which is a useful way to remember the single 'm' and the central '-min-' spelling. A much later twentieth-century sense, common in engineering and spaceflight, uses nominal to mean 'within expected limits' or 'performing as planned'.

How the word is built

• nomin- (from Latin nomen: name)
• -al (adjective suffix)