1. the things in the real world that words or symbols refer to or represent
Usage: linguistics; philosophy

Examples

• In the sentence ‘The dog is barking,’ the referent of ‘the dog’ is the actual animal being discussed.
• Pronouns like ‘he’ and ‘she’ must have clear referents to avoid confusion.
• The referents of abstract words like ‘justice’ can be difficult to identify.
• Students struggled to match the symbols with their proper referents.
• The referent of ‘this building’ depends on which building the speaker is indicating.
• Without knowing the referents, the meaning of the text remained unclear.