Referering

Referering is not a widely established term in English. It may be used in some languages or contexts to denote the act of referring or referencing, and it can appear as a spelling variant or loanword. In English, the standard forms are referring (the gerund of refer), reference (the act or the source cited), referrer (one who refers), and referral (the act of referring someone to another person or service).

In linguistic and discourse contexts, refering—or the broader act of referring—describes how language points to entities, events, or propositions within a text or conversation. This encompasses referential expressions such as pronouns, definite descriptions, demonstrations, and other devices used to establish referents and maintain coherence across discourse.

In computing and the web, the related idea is the referer or referring URL, indicating the source from which a request originates. The HTTP header historically used to convey this information is widely known as the Referer header, reflecting a conventional misspelling that persists in practice. Systems may refer to the concept as a referrer or referer, depending on terminology.

Beyond language and computing, refering concepts appear in medicine and marketing. In healthcare, a referral is the process by which a clinician directs a patient to a specialist or another provider. In marketing, referral programs encourage customers to refer others, often with incentives. In data management, references and foreign keys create referential links between records to maintain data integrity.

See also: referent, reference, citation, referrer, referral, hyperlink.