Skip to content
ARCHIEENGLISH
LearnPlayWordsRanking
  • Learn
  • Play
  • Words
  • Ranking
  • Mine
← Vocabulary

designation

UK/dɛzɪɡˈneɪʃən/US/dɛzɪɡˈneɪʃən/
nounB2+Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #12,641 of 15,258mostly written

Other forms: designations

A designation is an official name or title given to something. Job designation, a protected designation, the designation of the site.

In planning and conservation it has teeth: designation as a listed building or a protected area brings legal restrictions with it. Protected designation of origin is what stops anybody outside a region using its name.

Definitions of designation

  1. 1noundesignationAn official name or title given to something.B2+

    “The building's official designation is Block C, but everyone calls it the old library.”

designation is a title.

Where it comes from

Latin designatio comes from designare, to mark out, from de plus signum, a mark.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *sekʷ-

  2. Latin

    dēsignātiō

  3. Middle English

    designacioun

  4. English, today

    designation

From Middle English designacioun, from Latin dēsignātiō, and partly (especially in purpose) from design + ation. by surface analysis, designate + -ion.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

designation in the wild

  • The original list of Bayer designations contained 1564 stars.

    Bayer designation

  • A Flamsteed designation is a combination of a number and constellation name that uniquely identifies most naked eye stars in the modern constellations visible from southern England.

    Flamsteed designation

  • Multiple designation systems have been used to specify United States military aircraft.

    United States military aircraft designation systems

  • In the case of minor planets, more than one provisional designation may be assigned to independent discoveries of an object.

    Provisional designation in astronomy

  • Provisional designations are superseded by a name in the minority of cases where one is given.

    Provisional designation in astronomy

1 / 3

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

  • design
  • designer
  • redesign