reference

How to use reference in a sentence. Example sentences and definitions for reference.

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Editorial note

[2] Again, you might not mean to reference that when you use words like "brogrammer".

Examples9

Definitions11

Parts of speech2

Quick take

a remark that calls attention to something or someone; "she made frequent mention of her promotion"; "there was no mention of it"; "the speaker made several references to his wife"

Meaning at a glance

The clearest senses and uses of reference gathered in one view.

noun

a remark that calls attention to something or someone; "she made frequent mention of her promotion"; "there was no mention of it"; "the speaker made several references to his wife"

noun

a short note recognizing a source of information or of a quoted passage; "the student's essay failed to list several important citations"; "the acknowledgments are usually printed at the front of a book"; "the article includes mention of similar clinical cases"

noun

an indicator that orients you generally; "it is used as a reference for comparing the heating and the electrical energy involved"

Definitions

Core meanings and parts of speech for reference.

noun

a remark that calls attention to something or someone; "she made frequent mention of her promotion"; "there was no mention of it"; "the speaker made several references to his wife"

noun

an indicator that orients you generally; "it is used as a reference for comparing the heating and the electrical energy involved"

noun

a book to which you can refer for authoritative facts; "he contributed articles to the basic reference work on that topic"

noun

a formal recommendation by a former employer to a potential future employer describing the person's qualifications and dependability; "requests for character references are all too often answered evasively"

noun

the most direct or specific meaning of a word or expression; the class of objects that an expression refers to; "the extension of `satellite of Mars' is the set containing only Demos and Phobos"

noun

the act of referring or consulting; "reference to an encyclopedia produced the answer"

noun

a publication (or a passage from a publication) that is referred to; "he carried an armful of references back to his desk"; "he spent hours looking for the source of that quotation"

noun

(computer science) the code that identifies where a piece of information is stored

noun

the relation between a word or phrase and the object or idea it refers to; "he argued that reference is a consequence of conditioned reflexes"

verb

refer to; "he referenced his colleagues' work"

Example sentences

[2] Again, you might not mean to reference that when you use words like "brogrammer".

Bitcoins may be a good reference technology for this.

Shortly before Linus wrote this article in 2002, I wrote an XML-RPC library in C that used reference counting.

For a long time the New York Times had a javascript thing that would pop up a dictionary reference for anything you double clicked on. As someone who compulsively doubleclicks to highlight and unhighlight, it bugged the hell out of me.

Common Lisp allows references to undeclared and undefined things, and generates runtime errors should they not be defined by then.

At the time they were enacted it was largely credit reference agencies, public bodies and direct marketing businesses which were in the spotlight.

Microsoft Press was one of his favorite clients back in the day. Growing up, he'd tell me stories of disorganized secretaries at Microsoft sending him awful reference photos, so he'd look up the execs in the phonebook and call them at home.

* It solves a key problem for musicians, which is: when you're learning a new song, you generally listen to a recording of it, and it's a pain to cross-reference the recording with the sheet music/tab.

Infact, I'd be more surprised if someone couldn't!The techniques used are not particularly ingenious here, especially as most of the photo's seem to depict some obvious landmarks to provide an easy point of reference, especially when given the extra information to focus on a specific location.

Frequently asked questions

Short answers drawn from the clearest meanings and examples for this word.

How do you use reference in a sentence?

[2] Again, you might not mean to reference that when you use words like "brogrammer".

What does reference mean?

a remark that calls attention to something or someone; "she made frequent mention of her promotion"; "there was no mention of it"; "the speaker made several references to his wife"