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'Nominal' generally derives from name. A nominal quantity (e.g., length, diameter, volume, voltage, value) is generally the quantity according to which some item has been named or is generally referred to. Such a nominal value may have no real relation to the item being referred to. For example, a type of battery that has an ''actual voltage'' of 1.62 V – but is commonly called a "1.5 volt battery" – has a ''nominal voltage'' of 1.5 V (which cannot be measured anywhere).
The term has specific meanings in the following areas:

★ In economics a 'nominal value' indicates the listed value of an item in a monetary currency as opposed to the 'real' value in terms of purchasing power. See real versus nominal value. A nominal interest rate may refer to either a rate of interest that is not re-stated to correct for compounding, or an interest rate that does not take into account inflation (to derive the real interest rate).

★ In engineering, nominal signifies the product is according to engineering specifications and not the common equivocation that it is "normal". The use of the phrase "all systems nominal" at NASA indicate that telemetry is reading as expected from historical data trends.

★ In linguistics, a "nominal" is a word or group of words functioning as a noun. The word is also sometimes used as a shortened form of "nominal phrase", a synonym for "noun phrase". "Nominal" can also mean a sequence of one or more nouns that do not form a complete noun phrase.

★ In statistics, nominal data is a form of categorical data where the order of the categories is not significant. This is sometimes contracted to 'nominals'.

★ In law, 'nominal damages' may be assessed by a jury or judge in a lawsuit when it is found that the defendant committed the act complained of by the plaintiff, but that no harm was suffered by the plaintiff as a result.