Denotation is a word's literal meaning, the thing it refers to. Connotation is what the word suggests beyond that: the feelings and associations that come along with it. “Famous” and “notorious” share a denotation, widely known, but only “notorious” suggests the fame is for something bad. To keep them apart, pair denotation with definition (both start with “de”), and think of the “con” in connotation as what comes along with the word.
The guide to connotative words covers connotation on its own, with 45 word scales from positive to negative. This page is the comparison: how the two kinds of meaning differ, how dictionaries handle each, where writers lean on connotation and where they have to pin down denotation, and a practice set with answers.
Denotation and connotation compared
| Denotation | Connotation | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | DenotationWhat a word refers to | ConnotationWhat a word suggests beyond that |
| Where it lives | DenotationThe dictionary definition | ConnotationUsage labels, synonym notes and how people use the word |
| How stable | DenotationChanges slowly | ConnotationShifts with culture, region, context and reader |
| Can you check it? | DenotationYes, against a definition or the thing itself | ConnotationOnly by watching how readers react |
| “Notorious” | DenotationWidely known | ConnotationKnown for something bad |
| The adjective | DenotationDenotative: literal, explicit | ConnotationConnotative: implied, associative |
The clearest way to see the difference is to hold one word still and change the sentence around it.
- They had a small wedding in her parents' garden.
- He took the job despite the small salary.
- The surgeon said the risk was small.
“Small” keeps its plain dictionary meaning in all three: little in size or amount. The sentence supplies the rest. The wedding sounds intimate and chosen, the salary sounds inadequate, and the risk sounds like reassurance.
The two layers arrive together, which is why they are easy to blur. “Red” denotes a color and connotes danger, urgency, passion or debt, depending on whether it is on a stop sign, a valentine or a balance sheet. “December” denotes the last month of the year. To a reader in Chicago it connotes cold and early dark; to a reader in Sydney, summer holidays. The denotation is fixed by the calendar. The connotation belongs to the reader.
How dictionaries handle each
A dictionary definition is denotation. Merriam-Webster defines connotation as “something suggested by a word or thing,” and denotation as “a direct specific meaning as distinct from an implied or associated idea.” Its entries list senses in historical order, not by importance: “the sense known to have been first used in English is entered first.” So the first definition you see is the oldest recorded meaning, not necessarily the main one.
Connotation shows up in three places:
- Inside the definition, once it is settled. Merriam-Webster defines notorious as “generally known and talked of” and then adds “especially : widely and unfavorably known.” The unfavorable shade is strong enough that the dictionary writes it into the definition itself.
- In usage labels. Egghead is labeled “informal + often disparaging” and defined as “a person with intellectual interests or pretensions : a brainy person.” Tree hugger is “sometimes disparaging” for an environmentalist. The definitions are neutral; the labels warn you about the charge.
- In synonym notes. Merriam-Webster's note under notorious says that “famous, renowned, celebrated, noted, notorious, distinguished, eminent, illustrious mean known far and wide,” then separates them: “notorious frequently adds to famous an implication of questionableness or evil.” That is a dictionary describing connotation outright.
A thesaurus does the opposite. It groups words by shared denotation and says little about connotation, which is why a synonym from a thesaurus needs testing in the actual sentence before it stays.
One more sense trips up students. In logic, the pair means something else, and Merriam-Webster lists it separately: connotation as “an essential property or group of properties of a thing named by a term,” denotation as “the totality of things to which a term is applicable.” John Stuart Mill set this out in A System of Logic (1843): “A connotative term is one which denotes a subject, and implies an attribute.” His example is “white,” which “denotes all white things, as snow, paper, the foam of the sea, etc.,” and “implies, or in the language of the schoolmen, connotes” whiteness. No feelings are involved. If a philosophy or linguistics text uses the words, check which sense it means.
Connotation in poetry
Poems are compressed, so each word has to carry more than its definition. Many of the literary devices in poetry work this way, and a single word can hold both layers at once.
I wander thro' each charter'd street,
Near where the charter'd Thames does flow.
A charter is a document granting rights, usually to a city or a company, so “charter'd” denotes something licensed and legally defined. Applied to a street, and then to a river, it connotes ownership and control: even the Thames has been parceled out. A few lines later Blake hears “the mind-forg'd manacles,” and the word darkens to match.
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Read for denotation, the first line describes a color: the yellowish tint of new leaves in early spring. But “gold” also connotes value and perfection, and once “Eden” arrives the poem is about every first, best thing that doesn't last. The description is literal; the meaning is in the connotation.
Poets can also refuse connotation on purpose. Shakespeare's Sonnet 130 opens “My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun” and goes on taking the usual love-poem comparisons literally, until the couplet mocks “false compare.” The joke works because readers know what the sun, coral and snow are supposed to connote.
Connotation in advertising
Advertising chooses words for what they suggest. Some of those words mattered enough to shoppers that regulators gave them a denotation. In the United States, the FDA defines the nutrient claims on food labels, so the word on the package has a checkable meaning, whatever it suggests.
| Label word | What it suggests | What it means under FDA rules |
|---|---|---|
| Label wordLow fat | What it suggestsLean, healthier | What it means under FDA rules3 g of fat or less per reference amount customarily consumed (for most foods) |
| Label wordFat free | What it suggestsNo fat at all | What it means under FDA rulesLess than 0.5 g of fat per reference amount and per labeled serving |
| Label wordLight | What it suggestsFewer calories, less guilt | What it means under FDA rulesAt least a third fewer calories or half the fat of a reference food (the rule depends on how much of its calories come from fat) |
| Label wordNatural | What it suggestsWholesome, unprocessed | What it means under FDA rulesNo formal definition. FDA policy: nothing artificial or synthetic added that wouldn't normally be expected in the food |
The rule for “light” even covers its other meaning. The word may describe a physical attribute such as color or texture, as long as the label makes clear that is the sense intended. One spelling, two denotations, and a regulation to keep them apart. For copywriters the lesson is practical: a shopper reads the connotation, and a regulator reads the denotation, so the claim has to survive both.
Denotation in legal writing
Legal drafting tries to make each key word mean one thing, so it fixes denotations explicitly. Many contracts open with definitions (“‘Business Day’ means any day other than a Saturday, Sunday or public holiday in New York”), and Congress has a statute about the meaning of its other statutes. The Dictionary Act, 1 U.S.C. § 1, begins: “In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, unless the context indicates otherwise—words importing the singular include and apply to several persons, parties, or things.”
Botanically speaking, tomatoes are the fruit of a vine, just as are cucumbers, squashes, beans, and peas. But in the common language of the people, whether sellers or consumers of provisions, all these are vegetables which are grown in kitchen gardens…
Importers sued the customs collector, arguing that tomatoes were fruit, not the vegetables taxed under the Tariff Act of 1883. The Supreme Court held that, as provisions, tomatoes are vegetables. Two denotations competed, the botanist's and the market's. Neither was wrong. The context, a tax on produce bought and sold as food, decided which one the statute meant, and ordinary usage won.
Sixty-seven years later, in Frigaliment Importing Co. v. B.N.S. International Sales Corp. (S.D.N.Y. 1960), the word was “chicken.” The buyer said it meant young birds for broiling and frying; the seller said it covered all kinds. Judge Henry J. Friendly found the word ambiguous and ruled that the buyer had not proved its narrower meaning. A definition clause might have spared both sides a lawsuit. The freelance writing contract template makes the same point about scope: a word range and a date leave far less to argue about than “a blog post” does.
Which meaning is at work?
- Ask whether it could be checked. “Fat free” and “Unit 4B” can be measured or found. “Wholesome” and “cozy” can only be felt. The first kind is working by denotation, the second by connotation.
- Swap in a synonym. If the meaning survives and only the feeling changes (famous for notorious), you were looking at connotation.
- Think of a different reader. If the word would land differently in another country, decade or profession, as December does, part of its work is connotation.
- Watch for loaded words in neutral documents. Reports, instructions and contracts should run on denotation. A word like “promptly” or “natural” usually needs a definition or a number, or it can become the sentence everyone argues about later. (“Reasonable” is sometimes left open on purpose, as a standard for a court to apply.) A house style guide is the place to list such words and what your documents use instead.
To run that last check on a long report or contract draft, ask the Strokes Assistant to review it for words that tilt a reader where you meant to stay neutral, and for terms that are used but never defined.
Practice: denotation or connotation?
For each sentence, decide whether the word in quotation marks is working mainly through denotation, connotation or both, and say what each layer means.
- The lease defines the “Premises” as Unit 4B, 220 Harbor Street.
- The mayor is “notorious” for her charity work.
- He has a heart of “stone.”
- Add two cups of “fat-free” milk.
- The singer's “handlers” rushed her past the cameras.
- I wander thro' each “charter'd” street.
- Botanically, a tomato is a “fruit.”
- Our “small-batch, hand-poured” candles ship on Fridays.
- Denotation. The lease fixes the word to one unit, so its feelings don't matter.
- Connotation clash. “Notorious” denotes widely known but connotes something bad. Unless the writer is joking, “known” or “celebrated” fits.
- Connotation. Literally impossible; the word brings hardness and coldness.
- Denotation, and a regulated one: less than 0.5 g of fat per reference amount and per serving.
- Connotation. “Handlers” suggests someone managed like an animal or a product. “Staff” is neutral.
- Both. A charter grants legal rights; Blake's “charter'd” also suggests ownership and control.
- Denotation, in the botanist's sense. In Nix v. Hedden, the ordinary sense, vegetable, won.
- Both. The words make checkable claims (small batches, poured by hand) and are chosen for their suggestion of care and craft.
Frequently asked questions
What is an example of denotation?
The denotation of "red" is a color at the long-wavelength end of the visible spectrum; its connotations include danger, passion and debt. Stipulated definitions are denotation in its purest form: a lease that defines "Premises" as one numbered unit, or an FDA rule that "low fat" means 3 grams of fat or less per reference amount for most foods.
Can a word have both connotation and denotation?
Almost every word has both. The denotation is what it refers to, and the connotation comes from how people use it and what it reminds them of. Technical terms and function words such as "the" carry very little connotation, while poetry deliberately chooses words like Blake's "charter'd" whose two layers pull in different directions.
Does context change a word's dictionary meaning?
Usually not. In "a small wedding" and "a small salary," "small" means the same thing, little in size or amount; the sentence changes only what it suggests. But a connotation that becomes strong enough can be written into the definition: Merriam-Webster defines "notorious" as "generally known and talked of; especially : widely and unfavorably known."
