Referent
![The triangle of reference, from Ogden and Richards' The Meaning of Meaning.](/Images/godic/202502/06/Ogden_semiotic_triangle0142.png")
A referent /ˈrɛfərənt/ is a person or thing to which a linguistic expression or other symbol refers. For example, in the sentence Mary saw me, the referent of the word Mary is the particular person called Mary who is being spoken of, while the referent of the word me is the person uttering the sentence.