From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
reference
n 1: a remark that calls attention to something or someone; "she
made frequent mention of her promotion"; "there was no
mention of it"; "the speaker made several references to his
wife" [syn: mention, reference]
2: a short note recognizing a source of information or of a
quoted passage; "the student's essay failed to list several
important citations"; "the acknowledgments are usually
printed at the front of a book"; "the article includes
mention of similar clinical cases" [syn: citation, cite,
acknowledgment, credit, reference, mention,
quotation]
3: an indicator that orients you generally; "it is used as a
reference for comparing the heating and the electrical energy
involved" [syn: reference point, point of reference,
reference]
4: a book to which you can refer for authoritative facts; "he
contributed articles to the basic reference work on that
topic" [syn: reference book, reference, reference work,
book of facts]
5: a formal recommendation by a former employer to a potential
future employer describing the person's qualifications and
dependability; "requests for character references are all too
often answered evasively" [syn: character, reference,
character reference]
6: the most direct or specific meaning of a word or expression;
the class of objects that an expression refers to; "the
extension of `satellite of Mars' is the set containing only
Demos and Phobos" [syn: reference, denotation,
extension]
7: the act of referring or consulting; "reference to an
encyclopedia produced the answer" [syn: reference,
consultation]
8: a publication (or a passage from a publication) that is
referred to; "he carried an armful of references back to his
desk"; "he spent hours looking for the source of that
quotation" [syn: reference, source]
9: (computer science) the code that identifies where a piece of
information is stored [syn: address, computer address,
reference]
10: the relation between a word or phrase and the object or idea
it refers to; "he argued that reference is a consequence of
conditioned reflexes"
v 1: refer to; "he referenced his colleagues' work" [syn:
reference, cite]