Connotative describes that extra layer of meaning — the feelings and ideas a word (or a picture, or a colour) makes you think of, beyond the simple fact it names. Teachers set it against denotative: the denotative meaning of “snake” is a long animal without legs; the connotative meaning may be danger, cleverness, or evil, depending on the story. A connotative word is doing two jobs at once: pointing to a thing, and colouring it. This is a fairly school-and-essay word. In ordinary talk people just say “that word feels…” or use the noun connotation. Though actually, almost every everyday word is a bit connotative; we only notice it when two words share a basic meaning but do not feel the same.

帶有言外之意的、聯想的、內涵的