referent

Dictionary: ref·er·ent   (rĕf'ər-ənt, rĭ-fûr'ənt)

A person or thing to which a linguistic expression refers.

referent, that to which a linguistic expression refers. Usually this means some thing, process, or state of affairs in the world outside language. The Saussurean theory of the sign, however, regards external reality as an unnecessary complication, preferring to replace the notion of the referent with the purely conceptual notion of the signified. A distinction has sometimes been made in modern criticism between the referential language of factual information and the ‘emotive’ language of poetry (see pseudo‐statement).

That which is referred to by an expression. See reference.

The noun has 3 meanings:

Meaning #1: something referred to; the object of a reference

Meaning #2: the first term in a proposition; the term to which other terms relate

Meaning #3: something that refers; a term that refers to another term