notional

American  

[noh-shuh-nl] / ˈnoʊ ʃə nl /

adjective

1. pertaining to or expressing a notion or idea.

2. of the nature of a notion or idea.

   a notional response to the question.

3. abstract, theoretical, or speculative, as reflective thought.

4. not real or actual; ideal or imaginary.

   to create a notional world for oneself.

5. given to or full of foolish or fanciful ideas or moods.

6. Grammar.

   1. relating to the meaning expressed by a linguistic form.

   2. having full lexical meaning, in contrast to relational.

7. Semantics. belonging to a class of words that express clear concepts rather than relations between concepts; presentive.

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notional British  

/ ˈnəʊʃənəl /

adjective

1. relating to, expressing, or consisting of notions or ideas

2. not evident in reality; hypothetical or imaginary

   a notional tax credit

3. characteristic of a notion or concept, esp in being speculative or imaginary; abstract

4. grammar

   1. (of a word) having lexical meaning

   2. another word for semantic

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Other Word Forms

• notionality
  noun
• nonnotional
  adjective
• unnotional
  adjective
• notionally
  adverb
• unnotionally
  adverb

Etymology

Origin of notional

First recorded in 1590–1600; notion + -al ¹

Example Sentences

England began a baking final day with scant hope of an escape, resuming on 182-5, chasing a notional 463.

From BBC • Jun. 21, 2026

U.S. notional volume of levered ETFs is about $90 billion, up from almost nothing a decade ago, per Goldman Sachs data.

From Barron's • Jun. 17, 2026

But this is all fictional, or notional if you want to be polite.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 11, 2026

As a flat, rigid representation of a fluctuating and notional three-dimensional space, it wasn’t perfect.

From Salon • Apr. 13, 2026

In order to give particles any mass at all we have to introduce the notional Higgs boson; whether it actually exists is a matter for twenty-first-century physics.

From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson