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appellative, a. and n.|əˈpɛlətɪv|
[ad. L. appellātīvus, f. appellāt-: see appeal v. and -ive.]
A. adj. Having the characteristic of naming.
1. Designating a class; common as opposed to proper.
1520Whittinton Vulg. (1527) 4 b, If they be nownes appellatyue. 1590Swinburn Testaments 179 b, By names appellatiue..I vnderstand euerie name, which is common or maie comprehend diuers persons. 1755Johnson Pref. Dict. Wks. IX. 203 As my design was a dictionary, common or appellative, I have omitted all words which have relation to proper names. 1882J. Robertson tr. Müller's Heb. Synt. 48 Words that have almost or entirely lost their appellative meaning, as tehom, ‘abyss,’ ‘the deep.’
†2. Of the nature of an appellation, or descriptive name given to a thing or person. Obs.
1607Topsell Four-f. Beasts 111 Many particular Dogs, and their names appellative.. as Scylax, Speude, Alke, Rome. 1654Gayton Fest. Notes iv. iii. 191 All Knights and doughty men gave to themselves some name appellative.
3. Of or pertaining to the giving of names.
1860Farrar Orig. Lang. iii. 64 The appellative faculty in the savage and in the infant.
B. n.
1. A ‘common’ noun or name applicable to any one member of a whole class.
1591Percivall Sp. Dict., Of the Substantiues some be proper, as Vasco, Alonso. Some common, called also appellatiues, as Arbol, a tree. 1612J. Brinsley Lud. Lit. 76 Your rules of Appellatiues, or Common Nownes. 1747Johnson Plan Dict. Wks. 1787 IX. 171 Appellatives, or the names of species. 1854De Quincey in Page Life II. xviii. 86 Appellatives, words not expressing an individual but a class or species.
2. That which a thing or person is ‘called’; an appellation, designation, or descriptive name.
1632Sanderson 12 Serm. 140 The Philistims called their Kings by a peculiar appellatiue. a1733North Lives III. 112 Whig and Tory..were the appellatives; but the mythology was seditious and loyal. 1814Scott Wav. III. iv. 52 Wily Will justified his appellative. 1869Gladstone Juv. Mundi ii. 31 The several appellatives by which Homer describes the army engaged in the siege of Troy. |