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nominal
in a sentence
grouped by contextual meaning

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  • She receives only a nominal salary. Her real income comes from her stock options.
    nominal = insignificantly small
  • There's also a nominal airport tax as you depart.
    nominal = small
  • Their previous home had a mud roof which leaked in the rain and we had two spare rooms, so they stayed with us for a nominal rent and their children went to our school for free.   (source)
    nominal = insignificantly small
  • They made more bricks, and this time Deo and the committee managed to get a local craftsman to fire the bricks for a nominal fee.   (source)
    nominal = small
  • Their power was nominal but they had at least been able to keep the state government in the hands of native Georgians.   (source)
  • Is purely nominal.   (source)
    nominal = insignificantly small
  • It is a gem, and 'Full many a gem,' as the poet says, has been allowed to go at a nominal price because the public knew no better, because...   (source)
    nominal = small
  • Even your constant little heart need not take fright at such a nominal change.   (source)
  • ...there is now another vacancy open which entitles a member of the League to a salary of £4 a week for purely nominal services.   (source)
    nominal = insignificantly small
  • What do you call purely nominal?   (source)
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  • Tom Bertram had of late spent so little of his time at home that he could be only nominally missed; and Lady Bertram was soon astonished to find how very well they did even without his father, how well Edmund could supply his place in carving, talking to the steward, writing to the attorney, settling with the servants, and equally saving her from all possible fatigue or exertion in every particular but that of directing her letters.   (source)
    nominally = in a small manner
  • Edmund might, in the common phrase, do the duty of Thornton, that is, he might read prayers and preach, without giving up Mansfield Park: he might ride over every Sunday, to a house nominally inhabited, and go through divine service; he might be the clergyman of Thornton Lacey every seventh day, for three or four hours, if that would content him.   (source)
    nominally = barely (or only partially)
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  • The nominal value of my company declined when the stock market crashed yesterday, but the company is intrinsically as valuable as the day before.
    nominal = true officially, but not in reality
  • When they refer to the 100-year change in nominal average wages, they are referring to wages that are not adjusted for inflation (changing prices over the years).
    nominal = in form or name, but not in reality
  • The King became a nominal monarch when he was forced to accept the constitution and democratic control of the state.
    nominal = in name, but not in reality
  • The Thain was the master of the Shire-moot, and captain of the Shire-muster and the Hobbitry-in-arms, but as muster and moot were only held in times of emergency, which no longer occurred, the Thainship had ceased to be more than a nominal dignity.   (source)
  • "I think he has only been its nominal head for many years," said Anne.   (source)
    nominal = in name
  • Besides these three rooms there was another small one at the end of the passage, close to the kitchen, which was allotted to General Ivolgin, the nominal master of the house, who slept on a wide sofa, and was obliged to pass into and out of his room through the kitchen, and up or down the back stairs.   (source)
    nominal = in name, but not in reality
  • However, one excellent result of her general apathy was the long-delayed installation of Oak as bailiff; but he having virtually exercised that function for a long time already, the change, beyond the substantial increase of wages it brought, was little more than a nominal one addressed to the outside world.   (source)
  • It was no nominal meal that we were going to make, but a vigorous reality.   (source)
    nominal = in form, but not in substance
  • Nominally he is only an adjutant on Kutuzov's staff, but he does everything alone.   (source)
    nominally = officially (in title)
  • Though nominally included in the census of Christendom, he was still an alien to it.   (source)
    nominally = officially
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  • He says that there can be no high civilization without enslavement of the masses, either nominal or real.   (source)
    nominal = in form or name only
  • …and there he would continue, nominally engaged with one of the largest folios in the collection, but really talking to Mr. Bennet, with little cessation, of his house and garden at Hunsford.   (source)
    nominally = officially
  • And our dinner hour is nominally (for we dine at all hours) five!   (source)
    nominally = officially (in name only)
  • I should like to sit talking with you here all day, but we must not forget the ladies below, and so good-bye, my dear, my amiable, my excellent Fanny, for though we shall nominally part in the breakfast-parlour, I must take leave of you here.   (source)
    nominally = officially (in form, but not reality)
  • Even before Miss Taylor had ceased to hold the nominal office of governess, the mildness of her temper had hardly allowed her to impose any restraint; and the shadow of authority being now long passed away, they had been living together as friend and friend very mutually attached, and Emma doing just what she liked; highly esteeming Miss Taylor's judgment, but directed chiefly by her own.   (source)
    nominal = in name, but not in reality
  • Nominally five hundred.   (source)
    nominally = officially (in word, but not in reality)
  • It was not that she lent money on interest, but it was known, for instance, that she had for some time past, in partnership with old Karamazov, actually invested in the purchase of bad debts for a trifle, a tenth of their nominal value, and afterwards had made out of them ten times their value.   (source)
    nominal = face (the amount of the debt, but not its value at the time of the investment)
  •   By old English statutory law, the whale is declared "a royal fish."
      Oh, that's only nominal!  The whale himself has never figured in any grand imposing way.   (source)
    nominal = in name, but not in reality
  • For all these reasons then, and others perhaps too analytic to be verbally developed here, Ahab plainly saw that he must still in a good degree continue true to the natural, nominal purpose of the Pequod's voyage; observe all customary usages; and not only that, but force himself to evince all his well known passionate interest in the general pursuit of his profession.   (source)
    nominal = stated
  • "Well, sir," says Mr. George, "this man with me is the other party implicated in this unfortunate affair—nominally, only nominally— and my sole object is to prevent his getting into trouble on my account."   (source)
    nominally = in name, but not in reality
  • …therefore the grand political maxim of the sea demands, that he should nominally live apart from the men before the mast, and be in some way distinguished as their professional superior; though always, by them, familiarly regarded as their social equal.   (source)
    nominally = officially (though not entirely in reality)
  • But, though these barbarians dined in the cabin, and nominally lived there; still, being anything but sedentary in their habits, they were scarcely ever in it except at mealtimes, and just before sleeping-time, when they passed through it to their own peculiar quarters.   (source)
  • There are two royal fish so styled by the English law writers—the whale and the sturgeon; both royal property under certain limitations, and nominally supplying the tenth branch of the crown's ordinary revenue.   (source)
    nominally = officially (though not in reality)
  • Dear, dear Catherine, in being the bearer of such a message, I seem guilty myself of all its insult; yet, I trust you will acquit me, for you must have been long enough in this house to see that I am but a nominal mistress of it, that my real power is nothing.   (source)
    nominal = in name, but not in reality
  • You see, he, Dignam, I mean, didn't serve any notice of the assignment on the company at the time and nominally under the act the mortgagee can't recover on the policy.   (source)
    nominally = officially (in name)
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  • So she nominally continued her research, while in reality she focused on refining her mathematical model of the sun.†   (source)
  • Nominally, Sasha, I am here to help plan the inaugural congress of RAPP, which is to be held in June.†   (source)
  • Despite attending a nominally Christian school, I had not yet been inside a church—and I wasn't about to dare the deed now.†   (source)
  • Nominally, it would pass to Mrs. Tallis, but ultimately the success of the evening would be in Cecilia's care.†   (source)
  • Jimmy had never been clear about Crake's exact position, but whatever his nominal title — he'd been vague about that — he was obviously the biggest ant in the anthill.†   (source)
  • "All stats nominal," Martinez reported.†   (source)
  • This is not a nominal outcome.†   (source)
  • She charges nominal fees to troubleshoot people's PCs, change IP settings, fix their application-file freeze-ups, their slowdowns, their upgrade and boot-up failures.†   (source)
  • He topped off his tank, grabbed a bite of nominally tasting food, and tried to call Nan unsuccessfully.†   (source)
  • By 1938, having already outgrown its quarters on East Ninety-third Street, the school used budding support from Cleveland high society to buy at a nominal fee a forty-two-room English manor on Magnolia Street in University Circle.†   (source)
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  • It's more work in terms of reaching the top of the mountain, but that's only the nominal goal.†   (source)
  • Meantime his expenses, though made fairly nominal to her, cut into the money which Johnnie could send to her mother, and she was full of anxiety for the helpless little family left without head or protector up in that gash of the wind-grieved mountains on the flank of Big Unaka.†   (source)
  • The data show that car seats are, at best, nominally helpful.†   (source)
  • Of course, somewhere in those buildings, some person with a nameplate on their desk or door was called the warden and nominally ran the place, and below them in the food chain there were captains and lieutenants.†   (source)
  • The police were stationed in Mukhtar's home, nominally to protect her, and they listened to the entire interview.†   (source)
  • Kohistan was infamous for banditry and had never been more than nominally under control of Islamabad.†   (source)
  • Manuela, Oscar's mother, was nominally in charge, but she quickly fell into a funk.†   (source)
  • Jenks took a breath, nominally reflecting.†   (source)
  • The state paid a nominal amount for each pint of blood to replace the constantly undersupplied reserves.†   (source)
  • The Garseddai had put up only nominal resistance.†   (source)
  • So you see, you're hardly corrupting me with such a nominal request."†   (source)
  • He seems to be one of those nominal finance directors that small companies need.†   (source)
  • Though loyal to Washington and the administration, Adams was but nominally a Federalist, refusing steadfastly to be, or to be perceived as, a party man.†   (source)
  • Xenophon, who was in nominal charge of the expeditionary force, stood at the lip above the Aracthus and watched as the men climbed and the equipment was hauled up.†   (source)
  • Their lawyer had persuaded the judge to reduce the bail to a nominal fee, but they had spent three days in jail in the interim.†   (source)
  • With Dagmer Cleftjaw along as well, his command would be purely nominal.†   (source)
  • So seventeen kids is nominal.†   (source)
  • " "Nominally, he'll oversee the watchers.†   (source)
  • Temperatures are still nominal.†   (source)
  • The other member of the Greggson household who approved of the change was Fey, the beautiful golden retriever who nominally belonged to George, but could seldom be detached from Jeffrey.†   (source)
  • The Ivy League business was, of course, an imbecilic illusion… The University Residence Club was only one small cut above a flophouse, differing from Bowery accommodations to the extent of nominal privacy in the form of a locked door.†   (source)
  • I ate a quick lunch, rode subways and buses for an hour, then got a cab to take me out to the Westchester address of Evelyn, my nominal sister and hopeful jogger of memories.†   (source)
  • He was nominally a sixth grader.†   (source)
  • The authorized capital, though, was to be more than that, and the arrangement was that if we struck oil the geologist was to buy the rest of the shares at nominal rates.†   (source)
  • Nominally for failing to report to a police station within the statutory period after release from prison.†   (source)
  • Of course they have, nominally.†   (source)
  • His duties at the dockyard were now merely nominal.†   (source)
  • Qassam el-Banna was the moving company's nominal owner.†   (source)
  • Dear lady, could you bring yourself to play the nominal role of an old man's folly?†   (source)
  • A nominal eastward direction-call it "east."†   (source)
  • The fishing expedition will go forward tomorrow as planned, and for those of you who have not brought suitable rain gear and insect repellent, these are available for a nominal charge at the Registration Desk.†   (source)
  • Yeah, temp is nominal again already.†   (source)
  • His head measures twenty-two and three eighths inches in its circumference, sixteen inches from the meatus auditorias to the occipital protuberance, and six and one third inches through the head at the outermost from the point of nominal destructiveness.†   (source)
  • About ninety-eight percent of nominal.†   (source)
  • A purely nominal political privilege that pays not one centavo and that most of them aren't competent to use wisely anyhow.†   (source)
  • Now my thought is—just a rough idea, talking off the top of my head—for the procession we'll need to call in the surrounding countryside although for the charivari we could make do with just townspeople if you want to keep it modest in accordance with your reputation for dignified simplicity—say one day for the procession and a nominal two nights of charivari with guaranteed noise levels of—"†   (source)
  • It was just a peewee, of course, less than two kilotons nominal yield, with tamper and implosion squeeze to produce results from a less-than-critical mass — but then who wants to be bunk mates with a cosmic catastrophe?†   (source)
  • He left our combat team organization almost unchanged; instead of shifting everybody around, he moved the assistant section leader of the second section over into the (nominal) platoon sergeant spot, leaving his section leaders where they were needed — with their sections — and he moved me from lance and assistant squad leader into acting corporal as a largely ornamental assistant section leader.†   (source)
  • Nominally the Security Officer's department aside from clerks consists only of the bodyguard.†   (source)
  • Nominally, Alpha Group was under his control.†   (source)
  • Those people may nominally be under our authority but they are not under our control.†   (source)
  • He added, "Nominally I'm a temporary field agent for the service.†   (source)
  • Eventually, I got out of bed and slowly resumed my daily routines, by which I mean the stringent essentials a person must tend to in order to remain functional and nominally civil.†   (source)
  • Though Waziristan has been nominally a part of Pakistan since 1947, the little influence Islamabad has ever had on the Wazir has been the product of bribes distributed to tribal leaders and fortresslike army garrisons with little control over anything out of sight of their gun slits.†   (source)
  • I imagine," Fiedler continued, indicating with his head the motionless figure of Mundt in the front row, "that it is not disputed by the defendant that he was in Copenhagen on June twenty-first, nominally engaged on secret work on behalf of the Abteilung."†   (source)
  • We needed money badly and Granny and Aunt Addie decided that we could no longer share the entire house, and Uncle Tom and his family were invited to live upstairs at a nominal rental.†   (source)
  • When once a sort of official, legal, or nominal Unselfishness has been established as a rule--a rule for the keeping of which their emotional resources have died away and their spiritual resources have not yet grown--the most delightful results follow.†   (source)
  • If each side had been frankly contending for its own real wish, they would all have kept within the bounds of reason and courtesy; but just because the contention is reversed and each side is fighting the other side's battle, all the bitterness which really flows from thwarted self-righteousness and obstinacy and the accumulated grudges of the last ten years is concealed from them by the nominal or official "Unselfishness" of what they are doing or, at least, held to be excused by it.†   (source)
  • He could not realize their nominal closeness.†   (source)
  • I HAVE recognized that the cousinship was merely nominal, since we met as total strangers.†   (source)
  • Part of the remainder she was obliged to expend in winter clothing, leaving only a nominal sum for the whole inclement season at hand.†   (source)
  • He saw the heads of his classmates meekly bent as they wrote in their notebooks the points they were bidden to note, nominal definitions, essential definitions and examples or dates of birth or death, chief works, a favourable and an unfavourable criticism side by side.†   (source)
  • I mean it is a nominal marriage only.†   (source)
  • First, she repeated it rapturously in an enthusiastic contralto with a soupcon of Southern accent; then she held it off at a distance and smiled at it—her wonderful smile; then she delivered it in variations and played a sort of mental catch with it, all this in the nominal form of dialogue.†   (source)
  • His mother had been used to go to the public consultation on Saturday morning, when she could see the doctor for only a nominal sum.†   (source)
  • CUSINS [patiently] No. I have been making a night of it with the nominal head of this household: that is all.†   (source)
  • Yet now, as she could see, he was most nervously concerned as to whether, going alone in this way, she was going to get scared and "back out"; whether she was going to think to say the right thing at the right time and convince the doctor that he must do something for her, and for a nominal fee.†   (source)
  • And although within a few moments after he had obtained it, he appeared and explained that at last he had secured the name of some one who might help her, still there was yet the serious business of heartening her for the task of seeing the doctor alone, also for the story that was to exculpate him and at the same time win for her sufficient sympathy to cause the doctor to make the charge for his service merely nominal.†   (source)
  • He described how some boys had taunted him about his nominal mother, and Sue, grieved, expressed her indignation to Jude aloft.†   (source)
  • Then Sue wrote to tell him the day fixed for the wedding; and Jude decided, after inquiry, that she should come into residence on the following Saturday, which would allow of a ten days' stay in the city prior to the ceremony, sufficiently representing a nominal residence of fifteen.†   (source)
  • And the other poor soul—to escape a nominal shame which was owing to the weakness of her character, degrading herself to the real shame of bondage to a tyrant who scorned her—a man whom to avoid for ever was her only chance of salvation….†   (source)
  • …so, he thought, and his ingenious arguments on her natural fitness for assisting Mr. Phillotson, of which Jude knew nothing whatever, so influenced the schoolmaster that he said he would engage her, assuring Jude as a friend that unless his cousin really meant to follow on in the same course, and regarded this step as the first stage of an apprenticeship, of which her training in a normal school would be the second stage, her time would be wasted quite, the salary being merely nominal.†   (source)
  • The Colonel of the —th regiment, in which Messieurs Dobbin and Osborne had companies, was an old General who had made his first campaign under Wolfe at Quebec, and was long since quite too old and feeble for command; but he took some interest in the regiment of which he was the nominal head, and made certain of his young officers welcome at his table, a kind of hospitality which I believe is not now common amongst his brethren.†   (source)
  • Carried to an extreme, the measures seemed at once to be so absurd that the highest authorities, and public opinion, and intellectual ladies, and the newspapers, all at the same time fell foul of them, expressing their indignation both with the measures and their nominal father, Alexey Alexandrovitch.†   (source)
  • In all former confederations the privileges of the Union furnished more elements of discord than of power, since they multiplied the claims of the nation without augmenting the means of enforcing them: and in accordance with this fact it may be remarked that the real weakness of federal governments has almost always been in the exact ratio of their nominal power.†   (source)
  • So all about India, in the most remote places, as in the most public, you find some knot of grizzled servitors in nominal charge of an old lady who is more or less curtained and hid away in a bullock-cart.†   (source)
  • …and cheap clothing can be obtained at prices really to suit customers; while a thick coat can be bought for five dollars, which will last as many years, thick pantaloons for two dollars, cowhide boots for a dollar and a half a pair, a summer hat for a quarter of a dollar, and a winter cap for sixty-two and a half cents, or a better be made at home at a nominal cost, where is he so poor that, clad in such a suit, of his own earning, there will not be found wise men to do him reverence?†   (source)
  • …and liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied, as experience and circumstances shall dictate; constantly keeping in view that it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a portion of its independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that, by such acceptance, it may place itself in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more.†   (source)
  • But instead of having any thing to do, instead of having any profession chosen for me, or being allowed to chuse any myself, I returned home to be completely idle; and for the first twelvemonth afterwards I had not even the nominal employment, which belonging to the university would have given me; for I was not entered at Oxford till I was nineteen.†   (source)
  • The film was one of those that are nominally not shown for money.†   (source)
  • I was in terror that Mutchnik might have taken a notion to investigate in the Recorder's Office and find out that a relation of Mrs. Einhorn had nominally owned the lot.†   (source)
  • As the fortieth anniversary of the bombing approached, the Hiroshima peace center was nominally still in place — now in the Tanimoto home.†   (source)
  • Nominally under a Hindu doctor, he was really chief medicine man to the court.†   (source)
  • You shall be Mrs. Rochester — both virtually and nominally.†   (source)
  • The city, which was owned by an oligarchy of businessmen, being nominally ruled by the people, a huge army of graft was necessary for the purpose of effecting the transfer of power.†   (source)
  • Quite as much so as those later barbarians, young men probably, and picked specimens among the earlier British converts to Christianity, at least nominally such, and taken to Rome (as to-day converts from lesser isles of the sea may be taken to London), of whom the Pope of that time, admiring the strangeness of their personal beauty so unlike the Italian stamp, their clear ruddy complexion and curled flaxen locks, exclaimed, "Angles" (meaning English the modern derivative) "Angles do…†   (source)
  • They were presided over nominally by my mother, but really by Mr. Murdstone and his sister, who were always present, and found them a favourable occasion for giving my mother lessons in that miscalled firmness, which was the bane of both our lives.†   (source)
  • The Liberal Government (clearly by collusion) was beaten by the Conservatives, though the latter were nominally much in the minority.†   (source)
  • Although the road along its greater part had been as good as any turnpike-road in the country, it was nominally only a byway.†   (source)
  • A shaven, crouching Balti, who had come down with the horses, and who was nominally some sort of degraded Buddhist, fawned upon the priest, and in thick gutturals besought the Holy One to sit at the horseboys' fire.†   (source)
  • ' "In an accumulation of Ignominy, Want, Despair, and Madness, I entered the office — or, as our lively neighbour the Gaul would term it, the Bureau — of the Firm, nominally conducted under the appellation of Wickfield and — HEEP, but in reality, wielded by — HEEP alone.†   (source)
  • Such a separation must be merely nominal, and incapable of producing the ends for which it was established.†   (source)
  • Were the executive magistrate, or the judges, not independent of the legislature in this particular, their independence in every other would be merely nominal.†   (source)
  • It is evident that, without proper attention to this article, the separation of the executive from the legislative department would be merely nominal and nugatory.†   (source)
  • And hence it must be apparent, that much of what has been said on this subject rests merely on verbal and nominal distinctions, entirely foreign from the substance of the thing.†   (source)
  • The Lacedaemonians, to gratify their allies, and yet preserve the semblance of an adherence to their ancient institutions, had recourse to the flimsy subterfuge of investing Lysander with the real power of admiral, under the nominal title of vice-admiral.†   (source)
  • …to fear from the judiciary alone, but would have every thing to fear from its union with either of the other departments; that as all the effects of such a union must ensue from a dependence of the former on the latter, notwithstanding a nominal and apparent separation; that as, from the natural feebleness of the judiciary, it is in continual jeopardy of being overpowered, awed, or influenced by its co-ordinate branches; and that as nothing can contribute so much to its firmness…†   (source)
  • They must have reflected, that in all great changes of established governments, forms ought to give way to substance; that a rigid adherence in such cases to the former, would render nominal and nugatory the transcendent and precious right of the people to "abolish or alter their governments as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness,"2 since it is impossible for the people spontaneously and universally to move in concert towards their object; and it is…†   (source)
  • Though nominally a Catholic, I had been raised by Uncle Lamb, the completest of agnostics, and had only the vaguest idea of the significance of a rosary.†   (source)
  • In this respect his authority would be nominally the same with that of the king of Great Britain, but in substance much inferior to it.†   (source)
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