a. [ad. med.L. connotātīv-us, f. connotāt-, ppl. stem of connotāre to CONNOTE.
Nomen connotativum, terminus connotativus were used by Occam a. 1347: ‘Nomen autem connotativum est illud quod significat aliquid primario et aliquid secundario’ (Prantl, III. 364).]
1. Having the quality of connoting; pertaining to connotation, or to an additional or implied signification.
1614. Selden, Titles Hon., 126. Album, although in a formall signification of the thing designd it expresse a certain Ens per se, yet … the formall and materiall or connotatiue signification, of it, is, it’s Ens per accidens.
c. 1630. Jackson, Creed, V. xiii. Wks. IV. 95. Which definition … is not essential, but causal or connotative. Ibid. (1638), IX. xiii. Wks. VIII. 263. Collateral or connotative imprecations of divine power.
1846. Grote, Greece, I. xvi. I. 479. The word mythe … signified simply a statement or current narrative, without any connotative implication either of truth or falsehood.
1866. J. H. Newman, Lett. Pusey, 14. Secondary, symbolical, connotative senses of Scripture.
2. Logic. Connotative term: according to J. S. Mill, a term or word which, while it denotes (or is predicated of) a subject, also connotes or indicates its attributes.
In the scholastic and later logic a connotative, as distinguished from an absolute, term was one that primarily signified an attribute and secondarily a subject. In the logic of J. S. Mill this usage is inverted; the subject is ‘denoted,’ the attribute ‘connoted.’ Later still, the terms ‘denotation’ and ‘connotation’ have been used in a sense synonymous with logical ‘extension’ and ‘intension’ (cf. quot. 1876 in CONNOTATION 2, and Fowler, Deduct. Logic, ii. (1887), 19).
1829. Jas. Mill, Hum. Mind (1878), I. ix. 306. Friend is a concrete, connotative term … Its connotation is dropped by another mark, the syllable -ship; thus friendship.
1846. J. S. Mill, Logic, I. ii. § 5. A connotative term is one which denotes a subject and implies an attribute.
1872. H. Spencer, Princ. Psychol., II. VI. vi. 60. The subject and predicate of the major premiss are connotative terms.
1887. Fowler, Deduct. Log., ii. 19. In the scholastic logic, what I have called attributives [i.e., adjectives and participles used adjectively] are alone recognised as connotative terms.
