Connotation or denotation?
connotation is a noun meaning “A meaning of a word or phrase that is suggested or implied, as opposed to a…”; denotation is a noun meaning “The act of denoting, or something (such as a symbol) that denotes”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) connotation is about 11 times as common as denotation.
What is the difference between connotation and denotation?
| connotation | denotation | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun | noun |
| Meaning | A meaning of a word or phrase that is suggested or implied, as opposed to a denotation, or literal meaning. A characteristic of words or phrases, or of the… The attribute or aggregate of attributes connoted by a term, contrasted with denotation | The act of denoting, or something (such as a symbol) that denotes The primary, surface, literal, or explicit meaning of a signifier such as a word, phrase, or symbol; that which a word denotes, as contrasted with its… |
| Example | The word "advisedly" has a connotation of "wisely", although it denotes merely "intentionally" and "deliberately." | The denotations of the two expressions "the morning star" and "the evening star" are the same (i.e. both expressions denote the planet… |
| Forms | connotations | denotations |
| Pronunciation | /ˌkɒnəˈteɪʃən/ /ˌkɑnəˈteɪʃən/ | /ˌdiː.noʊˈteɪ.ʃən/ |
| In writing | about once in every 1 million words | about once in every 13 million words |
Sources: connotation and denotation in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of connotation and denotation
connotation
- 1
A meaning of a word or phrase that is suggested or implied, as opposed to a denotation, or literal meaning. A characteristic of words or phrases, or of the contexts that words and phrases are used in
The word "advisedly" has a connotation of "wisely", although it denotes merely "intentionally" and "deliberately."
- 2
The attribute or aggregate of attributes connoted by a term, contrasted with denotation
The two expressions "the morning star" and "the evening star" have different connotations but the same denotation (i.e. the planet Venus)
denotation
- 1
The act of denoting, or something (such as a symbol) that denotes
- 2
The primary, surface, literal, or explicit meaning of a signifier such as a word, phrase, or symbol; that which a word denotes, as contrasted with its connotation; the aggregate or set of objects of…
The denotations of the two expressions "the morning star" and "the evening star" are the same (i.e. both expressions denote the planet Venus), but their connotations are different
- 3
The intension and extension of a word
- 4
Something signified or referred to; a particular meaning of a symbol
- 5
Any mathematical object which describes the meanings of expressions from the languages, formalized in the theory of denotational semantics
- 6
A first level of analysis: what the audience can visually see on a page. Denotation often refers to something literal, and avoids being a metaphor
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, connotation or denotation?
connotation appears about once in every 1 million words; denotation about once in every 13 million words.
connotation about once in every 1 million wordsdenotation about once in every 13 million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search connotation vs denotation?
“connotation vs denotation” is searched about 9,900 times a month on Google and 440 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“denotation vs connotation”, “connotation or denotation”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.