nomenclature

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin nōmenclātūra (“a calling by name, list of names”), from nōmen (“name”) + calāre (“call”). Doublet of nomenklatura.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /nə(ʊ)ˈmɛŋ.klət͡ʃə/, /-ˈmɛn-/
  • (Received Pronunciation, obsolete) IPA^(key): /ˈnəʊmɪn.klət͡ʃə/, /ˈnəʊmɛn.klət͡ʃə/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈnoʊmənˌkleɪt͡ʃɚ/, /ˌnoʊmənˈkleɪt͡ʃɚ/

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

Noun

nomenclature (countable and uncountable, plural nomenclatures)

1. A set of rules used for forming the names or terms in a particular field of arts or sciences.
   • 1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, Chicago, Ill.: Field Museum of Natural History, →ISBN, page ix:

     It is also pertinent to note that the current obvious decline in work on holarctic hepatics most surely reflects a current obsession with cataloging and with nomenclature of the organisms—as divorced from their study as living entities.

   • 2025 December 7 (last accessed), G. P. Moss, “Recommendations for the Naming of Elements of Atomic Numbers Greater than 100”, in IUPAC‎^[2], archived from the original on 8 July 2025:

     The existence of a systematic nomenclature for the unknown elements does not deny the right of 'discoverers' of new elements to suggest other names to the Commission after their discovery has been established beyond all doubt in the general scientific community.

2. A set of names or terms.
   • 2014, "Weird Al" Yankovic, “Word Crimes”:

     I'll try to educate ya / Gonna familiarize you with the nomenclature

   • 2018, James Lambert, “A multitude of ‘lishes’: The nomenclature of hybridity”, in English World-Wide‎^[3], page 4:

     Another major defect of the current literature dealing with the nomenclature of hybrid forms of English is the scant attention paid to the question of frequency.

3. (obsolete) A name.

Synonyms

• terminology

Coordinate terms

• glossary, taxonomy

Derived terms

• binomenclature
• binomial nomenclature
• bionomenclature
• chemical nomenclature
• comiconomenclaturist
• Linnaean nomenclature
• nomenclatural
• nomenclaturally
• nomenclaturism
• nomenclaturist
• substitutive nomenclature

Related terms

• nomenclator, nomenclatory
• numericlature

Translations

set of names or terms

• Arabic: تَسْمِيَة f (tasmiya)
• Armenian: please add this translation if you can
• Belarusian: наменклату́ра f (namjenklatúra), намэнкляту́ра f (namenkljatúra) (dated)
• Bulgarian: номенклату́ра (bg) f (nomenklatúra)
• Burmese: please add this translation if you can
• Catalan: nomenclatura (ca) f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 命名法 (zh) (mìngmíngfǎ)

• Czech: nomenklatura f
• Danish: nomenklatur c
• Dutch: nomenclatuur (nl) f
• Esperanto: nomenklaturo
• Estonian: nomenklatuur
• Finnish: nimistö (fi)
• French: nomenclature (fr) f
• Galician: nomenclatura (gl) f
• Georgian: ნომენკლატურა (nomenḳlaṭura)
• German: Nomenklatur (de) f
• Greek: ονοματολογία (el) f (onomatología), νομενκλατούρα (el) f (nomenklatoúra)
• Hebrew: נוֹמֶנְקְלָטוּרָה (he) f (nomenklatúra)
• Hindi: नामकरण (hi) (nāmakraṇ)
• Hungarian: nómenklatúra (hu)
• Irish: ainmníocht f
• Italian: nomenclatura (it) f
• Japanese: 命名法 (ja) (めいめいほう, meimeihō)
• Kazakh: атаулар (atawlar), номенклатура (nomenklatuwra)
• Khmer: សមញ្ញា (km) (saʼmaññaa)
• Korean: 명명법 (ko) (myeongmyeongbeop)
• Kyrgyz: номенклатура (nomenklatura)
• Lao: please add this translation if you can
• Latvian: please add this translation if you can
• Lithuanian: please add this translation if you can
• Macedonian: номенклату́ра f (nomenklatúra)
• Malayalam: നാമകരണം (ml) (nāmakaraṇaṁ)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: nomenklatur (no) m or n

  Nynorsk: nomenklatur m

• Occitan: nomenclatura (oc) f
• Polish: nazewnictwo (pl) n, nomenklatura (pl) f
• Portuguese: nomenclatura (pt) f
• Romanian: nomenclatură (ro) f
• Russian: номенклату́ра (ru) f (nomenklatúra)
• Scottish Gaelic: ainmeachadh m
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: номенклату́ра f

  Latin: nomenklatúra (sh) f

• Slovak: nomenklatúra f
• Slovene: nomenklatura f
• Spanish: nomenclatura (es) f
• Swedish: nomenklatur (sv) c
• Tagalog: kangalanan
• Thai: please add this translation if you can
• Turkish: terimbilgisi
• Ukrainian: номенклату́ра (uk) f (nomenklatúra)
• Uzbek: nomenklatura (uz)
• Vietnamese: danh pháp (vi)

Further reading

• nomenclature on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “nomenclature”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin Eli Smith, editors (1895–1910), “nomenclature”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin nomenclatūra (“a calling by name, list of names”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /nɔ.mɑ̃.kla.tyʁ/

• Audio (France (Lyon)):

  (file)

• Audio (France (Somain)):

  (file)

Noun

nomenclature f (plural nomenclatures)

1. nomenclature

Further reading

• “nomenclature”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012

Italian

Noun

nomenclature f

1. plural of nomenclatura