Denominative

Denominative is a linguistics term used to describe a word that is formed from a noun. In this construction, the noun serves as the base from which a new word is derived, typically belonging to a different word class. The most common denominal words in English are verbs, created from nouns by derivation or conversion (often called zero-derivation). For example, bottle becomes to bottle, chair becomes to chair, pocket becomes to pocket. Denominative adjectives are also common, formed from nouns with suffixes such as -y or -en, as in wooden (from wood) or silvery (from silver).

Denominative verbs frequently carry a semantic relation related to the noun, such as an action performed with or on the noun, an instrumental or resultant meaning, or a role associated with the noun. For instance, to bottle can mean to put something into a bottle, and to chair can mean to preside over a meeting. The process can be productive in many languages and may occur with little or no overt morphology in some cases, though affixes or other derivational processes are found in others.

In linguistic descriptions, denominal words are distinguished from words formed by other processes, such as deadjectival (from adjectives) or verbal compounds. The term emphasizes the noun as the source of meaning. While denominal derivation can involve proper names in some analyses, the most common focus is noun-to-verb or noun-to-adjective formation.