| Definition:
The feelings, ideas, or other secondary associations that a word evokes in addition to its literal meaning.
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| Example:
A white person calling a white teenager a boy does not carry the same connotation as a white person calls a black teenager a boy.
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| Etymology:
The word derives from the Medieval Latin connotare, to signify in addition to the main meaning (from Latin com, together + notare, to mark).
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Oxford English Dictionary: The first OED citation of the word in this sense is from 1867: "The very word heresy, which simply means private judgment, has in all times borne an opprobrious connotation.'
(Lewes Hist. Philos. II. 6) |