1M N O M 
worlhipped. Hence, as every province was intoxicated 
with its own particular form and objeft of worlhip, it 
entertained the big-heft contempt for that of its neigh¬ 
bours, and took a pleafure in profaning the animal 
which among them had divine honours paid it. This re¬ 
ligious opposition had the defired effedl ; for, all mutual 
confidence being thereby cut off, there were no more in¬ 
fur re< 5 i ions againft the government. Mem. Acad. Infcrip. 
vol. xiii. p. 51. 
NO'MENCLATOR, f. [Latin.] One who.calls things 
or perfons by their proper names.—Are envy, pride, ava¬ 
rice, and ambition, fuch ill nomeuclators, that they cannot 
furnilh appellations for their owners ? Swift. —They were 
driven to have their riomenclators, controllers, or remem¬ 
brancers, to tell them the names of their fervants, and 
people about them, fo many they were. Hahewill on Pro¬ 
vidence. 
NO'iVIENCLATOR, or Nomenculator, f. Among 
the Romans, was ufuaily a Have, who attended perfons 
that ftood candidates for offices, and prompted or fug- 
' gefted to them the names of all the citizens they met, 
that they might court them, and call them by their names : 
which among that people was the higheft piece of civility. 
—There were a fet of men in old Rome, called by the 
name of nomeuclators; that is, in Englifh, men who could 
call every one by his name. Guardian, N° 107. 
NOMEN CL A'TRESS, f. A female nomenclator.—I 
have a wife who is a nomenclatrtjs, and will be ready on 
any occalion to attend the ladies. Guardian, N° 107. 
NOMENCLATURE, f. Name.—To fay, where no¬ 
tions cannot fitly be reconciled, that there wanteth a term 
or nomenclature for it, is but a ftiift of ignorance. Bacon's 
‘Nat. Hiji. —A vocabulary; a dictionary; a catalogue ot 
feveral of the more ufual words in any language, with 
their fignifications ; compiled in order to facilitate the life 
and retaining of fuch words to thole who are to learn the 
tongue.—We have Latin, Greek, French, &c. nomencla¬ 
tures. Chambers. 
Nomenclature is a word more commonly employed 
to denote the language peculiar to any particular fcience, 
or art. The nomenclature of botany was firft reduced to 
fixed principles by Linnaeus ; and it is to the modern no¬ 
menclature of chemiftry, fo admirable both for its inge¬ 
nuity and comprehenfivenefs, that the rapid progrefs 
which has been made in this department of philofophy, 
during the laft five and twenty years, is, in a. great mea- 
fure, to be aferibed. Nor need we be furprifed at this, 
for, “as ideas are preferved and communicated by means 
of words, it necefiarily follows, that we cannot improve 
the language of any fcience, without at the fame time im¬ 
proving the fcience itfelf; neither can we, on the other 
hand, improve a fcience, without improving the language, 
or nomenclature, which belongs to it. However certain 
the fadts of any fcience maybe, and however juft the ideas 
we may have formed of thefe fadts, we can only commu¬ 
nicate falfe or imperfedt impreflions of thefe ideas to others, 
while we want words by which they may be properly ex- 
preffed.” Such is the remark of the celebrated Lavoifier; 
and in all the circumftnnces attendant on the reform in 
the fcience and language of chemiftry, his reafoning is 
molt fully verified. The grand outline of the modern 
nomenclature was Iketched and delivered to the world by 
Fourcroy, Morveau, Eerthollet, and himfelf. This took 
place in the year 1787; and the changes which have fince 
been made have all been of that trifling nature, as to 
leave the bafis of the fyftem, founded by thele philolophers, 
entire and undifturbed. Their firft ftep was to give to 
each of the fubftances fuppofed to be uncompounded, or 
elementary, Ample and appropriate names. In moll in- 
flances they adopted thofe that had been long in ule, it 
having been made a law by them, “ fcrupuloufly to pre¬ 
serve the ancient names in all cafe 3 wherein the fubjedt, 
denominated and long known, prefented in its ancient 
denomination no one of the vices which they were defi- 
jrous of avoiding.” But the difeovery of the conftituent 
N O M 
parts of watery and of the atmofphere, rendered the 
adoption of certain new titles neceflary ; and in conftrudt- 
ing thefe they were guided by fome prominent peculiarity 
prefented by each of the elementary bodies. The two 
ingredients, for example, of which water is compofed, 
received the appellations o oxygen and hydrogen; in con- 
fequence of the former poflelfing the exclulive power of" 
imparting acidity to certain of its coinbCtftions, and from 
the latter being the “ generative principle” of water. The 
roots in thofe cafes from which the derivation is effedted, 
were the Greek words ofu?, acid, and v§ag, water; the verb 
•yeivoy.ca, to beget or generate, being added to each. In 
all the additions which have been lubfequently made to 
the elementary catalogue, the principle thus laid down 
has, either in letter or fpirit, been uniformly acknow¬ 
ledged. It was not in every inftance that the charadteriftic 
properties of the fubftance were fufficiently ftriking to 
enable the difeoverer to derive the propofed name from 
thefe; but, in defedt of fuch aid, either the place where 
the compound affording the new body was found has 
fuggelted the term, or fome other circumftance equally 
connedted with its hiftory. See the old and new nomen¬ 
clatures contrafted under the article Chemistry, vol.iv, 
p. 148-153. 
NOMEN'TUM, in ancient geography, a town of Italy, 
in Latium. Pliny and Virgil have mentioned this town, 
which gave name to a Roman way, which palled by it 
from Rome, and joined the Salar way at Eratum. The 
ruins of this town occupy a confiderable extent. Now 
La Mentana. 
NOM'ENY, a town of France, in the department of 
the Meurte, on the Seille: fix miles eaft of Pont a. Mouf- 
fon, and twelve weft-north-weft of Chateau Safins. 
NO'MI, a town of Japan, in the iftand of Niphon: 
fixteen miles fouth-eaft of Kanazava. 
NO'MII, in ancient geography, a mountain of Arca¬ 
dia, on which was a temple conl’ecrated to Pan the No- 
mian, according to Paufanias. 
NOM'INA VILLA'RUM; an account of the names 
of all the villages, and the polfefibrs thereof, in each 
county, drawn up by feveral Iheriffs 9 Edward II. and 
returned by them into the exchequer; where it is ftill pre¬ 
ferved. 
NOM'INAL, adj. [nominalis , Lat.] Referring to names 
rather than to things ; not real; titular.—The nominal 
definition or derivation of a word is not fufficient to de- 
feribe the nature of it. Pearfon. —The nominal elfence of 
gold is that complex idea the word gold Hands for ; as a 
body yellow, of a certain weight, malleable, fufible, and 
fixed. But the real efience is the conftitution of the in- 
fenlible parts of that body on which thole qualities depend. 
Locke. —Were thefe people as anxious for the dodtrines 
elfential to the church of England, as they are for the 
nominal diftinction of adhering to its interefts ? Addifon. 
Profound in all the nominal 
And real ways beyond them all. Hudibras. 
NOM'INAL, or Nom'inalist, f. One of the fcholaf- 
tic philolophers, who maintained that words or names 
only were to be attended to in all logical difquilitions.— 
They were called Nominuls, becaufe they held univerfals 
to be not res, but notnina. Bp. Morton's DiJ'charge, 1633.—< 
Rofcelinus introduced a new dodtrine, “ that there is no¬ 
thing univerlal, but words and names.” By his eloquence 
and abilities, and thofe of his difciple Abelard, the doc¬ 
trine fpread, and thofe who followed it were called No- 
mindlifts. Reid. —The Nominalijls were great dealers in 
words; whence they were vulgarly denominated word- 
J'ellers. They had the denomination Nominalifts, becaufe, 
in oppofition to the Realijls, they maintained, that words, 
not things, were the object of dialedtics. Chambers. 
This fed! had its firft rife towards the end of the eleventh 
century, and pretended to follow Porphyry and Ariftotle; 
but it was not till Occam’s time (in the fourteenth cen¬ 
tury) that they bore the name. The chief of this fedt, in 
1 the 
