DENOMINATION

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does denomination mean? 

• DENOMINATION (noun)
  The noun DENOMINATION has 3 senses:

1. a group of religious congregations having its own organization and a distinctive faith

2. a class of one kind of unit in a system of numbers or measures or weights or money

3. identifying word or words by which someone or something is called and classified or distinguished from others

  Familiarity information: DENOMINATION used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DENOMINATION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A group of religious congregations having its own organization and a distinctive faith

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Hypernyms ("denomination" is a kind of...):

NGO; nongovernmental organization (an organization that is not part of the local or state or federal government)

Meronyms (members of "denomination"):

congregation; faithful; fold (a group of people who adhere to a common faith and habitually attend a given church)

believer; worshiper; worshipper (a person who has religious faith)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "denomination"):

communion ((Christianity) a group of Christians with a common religious faith who practice the same rites)

Protestant denomination (group of Protestant congregations)

Derivation:

denominate (assign a name or title to)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A class of one kind of unit in a system of numbers or measures or weights or money

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Context example:

he flashed a fistful of bills of large denominations

Hypernyms ("denomination" is a kind of...):

category; class; family (a collection of things sharing a common attribute)

Derivation:

denominate (assign a name or title to)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Identifying word or words by which someone or something is called and classified or distinguished from others

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

appellation; appellative; denomination; designation

Hypernyms ("denomination" is a kind of...):

name (a language unit by which a person or thing is known)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "denomination"):

street name (an alternative name that a person chooses or is given (especially in inner city neighborhoods))

byname; cognomen; moniker; nickname; sobriquet; soubriquet (a familiar name for a person (often a shortened version of a person's given name))

form of address; title; title of respect (an identifying appellation signifying status or function: e.g. 'Mr.' or 'General')

title (an appellation signifying nobility)

Derivation:

denominate (assign a name or title to)

 Context examples 

No, it was not snow that was falling, but checks of large denomination, the smallest not less than a thousand dollars.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

I have said that the company were all gone; but I ought to have excepted Uriah, whom I don't include in that denomination, and who had never ceased to hover near us.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Where any one body of educated men, of whatever denomination, are condemned indiscriminately, there must be a deficiency of information, or (smiling) of something else.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

He showed me also, in one of his books, the figures of the sun, moon, and stars, the zodiac, the tropics, and polar circles, together with the denominations of many plains and solids.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

He was for any description of policy, in the compass of a week; and nailed all sorts of colours to every denomination of mast.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

It is not there that respectable people of any denomination can do most good; and it certainly is not there that the influence of the clergy can be most felt.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

As every person called up made exactly the same appearance he had done in the world, it gave me melancholy reflections to observe how much the race of human kind was degenerated among us within these hundred years past; how the pox, under all its consequences and denominations had altered every lineament of an English countenance; shortened the size of bodies, unbraced the nerves, relaxed the sinews and muscles, introduced a sallow complexion, and rendered the flesh loose and rancid.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

After Martin had helped her on the car, he hurried to the post-office and invested three of the five dollars in stamps; and when, later in the day, on the way to the Morse home, he stopped in at the post-office to weigh a large number of long, bulky envelopes, he affixed to them all the stamps save three of the two-cent denomination.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

My family, said Mrs. Micawber, who always said those two words with an air, though I never could discover who came under the denomination, my family are of opinion that Mr. Micawber should quit London, and exert his talents in the country.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

It is not for one, situated, through his original errors and a fortuitous combination of unpropitious events, as is the foundered Bark (if he may be allowed to assume so maritime a denomination), who now takes up the pen to address you—it is not, I repeat, for one so circumstanced, to adopt the language of compliment, or of congratulation.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)