Meaning

• A relationship or relation (to something).

• A measurement one can compare to.

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

• A person who provides this information; a referee.

• A reference work.

• That which serves as a reference work.

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

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

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

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

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

• (character entity) A special sequence used to represent complex characters in markup languages, such as ™ for the ™ symbol.

• Appeal.

Meaning

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

  "You must thoroughly reference your paper before submitting it."

• To refer to, to use as a reference.

  "Reference the dictionary for word meanings."

• To mention, to cite.

  "In his speech, the candidate obliquely referenced the past failures of his opponent."

• To contain the value that is a memory address of some value stored in memory.

  "The given pointer will reference the actual generated data."