Relation vs. Reference — What's the Difference?

A logical or natural association between two or more things; relevance of one to another; connection

Reference is a relationship between objects in which one object designates, or acts as a means by which to connect to or link to, another object. The first object in this relation is said to refer to the second object.

The connection of people by blood or marriage; kinship.

The act of referring to something

A person connected to another by blood or marriage; a relative.

Significance for a specified matter; relation or relationship

The way in which one person or thing is connected with another

Meaning or denotation

The mutual dealings or connections of persons, groups, or nations in social, business, or diplomatic matters

A mention of an occurrence or situation

Sexual intercourse.

A note in a publication referring the reader to another passage or source.

The act of telling or narrating.

The passage or source so referred to.

A narrative; an account.

A work frequently used as a source.

(Mathematics) A correspondence between two sets, consisting of a set of ordered pairs, the first element of each of which is from the first set, and the second element of each of which is from the second set. If A = {1,2} and B = {3,4}, then {(1,3), (1,4)} is a relation from A to B.

A mark or footnote used to direct a reader elsewhere for additional information.

(Law) The principle by which an action done on a certain date is treated as having been done on an earlier date. Also called relation back.

Submission of a case to a referee.

The manner in which two things may be associated.

Legal proceedings conducted before or by a referee.

A member of one's extended family; a relative.

A person who recommends another or who can vouch for another's fitness or qualifications, as for a job.

The act of relating a story.

A statement about a person's qualifications, character, and dependability.

(set theory) A set of ordered tuples.

To supply (a text) with references

(set theory) Specifically, a set of ordered pairs; a binary relation.

To cite as a reference

(databases) A set of ordered tuples retrievable by a relational database; a table.

Usage Problem To mention or allude to

(mathematics) A statement of equality of two products of generators, used in the presentation of a group.

A relationship or relation (to something).

(category theory) A subobject of a product of objects.

A measurement one can compare (some other measurement) to.

(usually collocated: sexual relation) The act of intercourse.

Information about a person, provided by someone (a referee) with whom they are well acquainted.

The act of relating or telling; also, that which is related; recital; account; narration; narrative; as, the relation of historical events.

A person who provides this information; onlyn in UK English: a referee.

The state of being related or of referring; what is apprehended as appertaining to a being or quality, by considering it in its bearing upon something else; relative quality or condition; the being such and such with regard or respect to some other thing; connection; as, the relation of experience to knowledge; the relation of master to servant.

A reference work.

Reference; respect; regard.

(attributive) That which serves as a reference work.

Connection by consanguinity or affinity; kinship; relationship; as, the relation of parents and children.

The act of referring: a submitting for information or decision.

A person connected by cosanguinity or affinity; a relative; a kinsman or kinswoman.

(semantics) A relation between objects in which one object designates, or acts as a means by which to connect to or link to, another object.

The carrying back, and giving effect or operation to, an act or proceeding frrom some previous date or time, by a sort of fiction, as if it had happened or begun at that time. In such case the act is said to take effect by relation.

(academic writing) A short written identification of a previously published work which is used as a source for a text.

An abstraction belonging to or characteristic of two entities or parts together

(academic writing) A previously published written work thus indicated; a source.

The act of sexual procreation between a man and a woman; the man's penis is inserted into the woman's vagina and excited until orgasm and ejaculation occur

(computing) An object containing information which refers to data stored elsewhere, as opposed to containing the data itself.

A person related by blood or marriage;

A special sequence used to represent complex characters in markup languages, such as ™ for the ™ symbol.

An act of narration;

(obsolete) Appeal.

(law) the principle that an act done at a later time is deemed by law to have occurred at an earlier time;

To provide a list of references for (a text).

(usually plural) mutual dealings or connections among persons or groups;

To refer to, to use as a reference.

To mention, to cite.

(programming) To contain the value that is a memory address of some value stored in memory.

The act of referring, or the state of being referred; as, reference to a chart for guidance.

That which refers to something; a specific direction of the attention; as, a reference in a text-book.

Relation; regard; respect.

One who, or that which, is referred to.

The act of submitting a matter in dispute to the judgment of one or more persons for decision.

Appeal.

A remark that calls attention to something or someone;

A short note recognizing a source of information or of a quoted passage;

An indicator that orients you generally;

A book to which you can refer for authoritative facts;

A formal recommendation by a former employer to a potential future employer describing the person's qualifications and dependability;

The most direct or specific meaning of a word or expression; the class of objects that an expression refers to;

The act of referring or consulting;

A publication (or a passage from a publication) that is referred to;

The relation between a word or phrase and the object or idea it refers to;

Refer to;